The Trouble with Scorchers
by SWFicWriters
Summary: Sequel to 'Of Padawans Fake & True'. Raven adjusts to an apprenticeship with Eeth, one of the strictest masters in the Jedi Temple. She goes on a number of field trips. Warning: This story contains frequent spanking scenes of a non-sexual, disciplinary nature and occasional coarse language. Don't enjoy, don't read. We do not endorse the spanking of real children. This is fiction.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hey to all who have followed us, and to any new faces. During the past months, we've been editing stories that originated as online role-playing, situated in our alternative Star Wars universe – well, mainly the universe of Episode One, pretending that the tragedy of the Great Jedi Purge never happened! Ahem. This is the second story that focuses on Eeth and Raven. Again, re-reading and editing this is going to be fun. Okay, so we also cringe, laugh and can't believe some of the crazy ideas that we came up with :D

There are approximately twenty-five stories pre-written in this series, and this being number two means that we still have a lot of work to do, and we hope that you guys enjoy the ride with us.

And now for the housekeeping. We realise that our master characters, especially Eeth, will at times come across as harsh to some. To be honest, in Eeth's case that is because he was meant to be harsh. However, please keep in mind that this is a fictional universe in which teenagers with extraordinary, potentially lethal abilities are raised to do an incredibly hard, dangerous and responsible job. Their masters feel an obligation to keep them in line in order to protect them and others by various types of discipline, including corporal punishment, i.e., spanking with the hand and different implements. And sometimes, they will need to dispense with the cuddling and tell their charges to do their duty. These are teenagers, after all, not small children. There will always be times to offer comfort and moments of closeness between master and padawan, but they might sometimes have to wait. Plus, masters might have their own issues… which is certainly true for Eeth, as will become clear over time. His journey with Raven will be a learning experience for him as much as for his padawan. Fortunately for our padawans, our master characters have near-magical healing abilities at their disposal, allowing us to indulge our preference for strict discipline.

We realise that this might not be everybody's cup of tea. We assure you, though, that there's always character development and growth involved in our story arcs. If you like our stories (or if you don't like them), write us a review; we love to hear what you guys think. Okay, so here we go. Enjoy.

* * *

Raven bounced down the Temple corridor. She was in a particularly good mood today as her zoology teacher, Master Granzien, had informed the class that they would be going on a field trip to Mount Akemi the day after tomorrow. A message had been sent through to Eeth, along with the other masters of all the students in her class, and she hoped Eeth would let her go. The eleven-year-old had been Eeth's apprentice for a little over a month now, and despite a few firm words and a reminder swat here and there, she had been well-behaved since the fight with Rayan – Rayan, who was being kept under close supervision for the moment, with the Council exploring options for his future that did not involve weapons of any kind.

"Master?" Raven shouted to their common room while hanging up her cloak and sitting to pull off her boots. Her pack would be tossed into her bedroom next. It was a routine the padawan had gotten into after having been told off for throwing her boots off by the couch and leaving her stuff lying around the place.

"Hello padawan," Eeth replied, emerging from his room where he had been working and giving her a small smile. "Did you have a good day?"

"Yes! Have you checked the comm unit yet?" Raven didn't wait for him to reply before continuing. "We're going on a field trip!" Despite the fact that Eeth had taken her into Coruscant a few times since she had become his apprentice, Raven would still grab any and every excuse to broaden her horizons.

Indeed, Eeth had already read the comm message about the field trip – or rather, the series of field trips that would take place in the coming weeks to different non-urbanized planets in the sector – and he had no objections.

"I have, padawan," he said. "And I have already returned the consent form. After all, this is part of your education. Now come and help me prepare some sandwiches for lunch."

"You know," Raven started, completely ignoring his comments about her education. "Master Granzien says we might make the third marker, if we don't get stuck in traffic on the way out of Coruscant, that is." Mount Akemi played host to a variety of creatures. However, the walking did require a certain amount of fitness and dexterity, which was why it was not always covered in gawking tourists and remained reasonably unspoilt.

"Are you going to study zoology or is this about climbing mountains?" Eeth asked as he went to the kitchen, exhibiting an almost imperceptible amount of disapproval. "I hope these trips are not just random nature rambles into picturesque areas. This excursion should be meant to contribute to your education, rather than offering you entertainment."

"Force forbid such an atrocity dare take place," Raven replied, rolling her eyes as she turned to set the table for lunch.

"Indeed," said Eeth drily, taking a loaf of bread out of the bread box and starting to slice it.

"Anyway, the fact that it might be entertaining doesn't mean it won't be educational," Raven stated.

Eeth chose not to comment on that. She was probably right even if the notion of a class providing entertainment did not sit well with him.

Eeth's doubts did not deter Raven, and she ploughed on. "There are rumours that Master Granzien is an environmental activist, among other things. I even heard that as a padawan he chained himself to a tree during a mission to prevent the locals from cutting it down." She paused, contemplating. "I doubt his master would have been too happy about that."

"As a matter of fact, he was not," Eeth, who knew quite a bit about the man, commented.

This had Raven's attention. "Did you know Granzien when that happened to him?"

"Granzien is my age and took many of the same classes as I did," said Eeth rather curtly. He had never particularly liked Granzien whom he considered a fairly weak character and whose lax attitude towards the rules he had always resented. But he was definitely not going to inform Raven of his personal dislike of one of her teachers!

Raven looked surprised. "Were you friends?" From the few stories she had gleaned about his youth, Raven didn't imagine Eeth had many friends back then.

"Not friends exactly," Eeth said cautiously. "My master was friends with his master, though. Anyway, when he chained himself to that tree, it did not take long before the whole Temple knew about what happened on that mission. Granzien's actions caused a whole lot of political disruptions. He was young at the time; I do not think he would do it again." He thought it prudent to mention this; Raven had displayed a bit of admiration for that stunt, or so it seemed to him. He did not want to encourage such lack of discipline!

Raven did indeed find Granzien's efforts admirable, but she didn't say as much.

During lunch, she continued to talk to Eeth about Granzien — not that he was forthcoming about details on the man's youth — and Sunday's up and coming field trip. Once the dishes were done, their workout and her afternoon chores completed, Raven wandered into their common room where Eeth was seated at the terminal opposite their dining room table. She sidled up beside him, all sweetness and light. "Since it's Friday afternoon and all, do you think we can go into Coruscant?"

Eeth turned around to face her. "Was there anything in particular you want to see or do?" he inquired.

"Not really. Anything is better than staying at the Temple, though. Don't you think?" Raven couldn't comprehend that Eeth might just enjoy the peace that Temple life offered. To her, it was all about action, adventure, all the things that most padawans craved but knew better than to voice.

"No," said Eeth honestly. After his childhood in Nar Shaddaa, Temple life had seemed like positive bliss to him. He was not afraid of action and adventure but he did not remotely crave such things either.

"I just thought it would be fun. Fine then, be like that," Raven huffed, and stalked off to watch the holo.

Eeth looked after her in bewilderment, having no idea what had caused that reaction. _Adolescence_ , he thought with an internal sigh. "No holo channel without asking for permission," he said automatically, turning it off with a wave of his hand, which caused Raven to glare at him.

"I did not say we could not go out," Eeth continued, unperturbed. "We can, in fact. I just thought you might have something specific in mind."

"No. I don't have anything specific in mind, and now I can't even watch the holo."

Eeth had not said that either but he was not going to allow her to sidetrack him into pointless debates. "What do you want to look at?" he merely asked patiently. "Parks? Shops? Street markets? The spaceport? The Senate? Traffic?"

"Yeah, traffic sounds like great fun. Where do I sign up?" Raven replied, sarcasm dripping from her words.

Using sarcasm was never a good idea with Eeth, though.

"Alright. We will stay home then," Eeth said calmly, turning back towards the terminal and continuing his reading.

Adults! Raven wanted to jump up and down but her stubbornness wouldn't allow such a thing.

Five minutes passed in which Raven continued silently brooding and beating up on their defenceless couch. She wanted to go out, but it would mean softening towards Eeth.

Eeth finally looked up again. "I will thank you to leave our couch intact, padawan," he said in a neutral voice. "What is it that has you so irritated?"

Raven stopped beating up the couch, but the look she levelled him with spoke volumes. She had thought it would have been obvious; he was infuriating her. "I want to go out and you're suggesting we watch the traffic. I want to watch holo, and you turn it off because I didn't ask! You're patronising me." The insecurities that Rayan had planted were growing.

Eeth raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"I am not," he said. "I was asking you to specify what you wanted to look at so I could decide on where we might go. For some reason I do not quite understand, you felt offended by my question. You might not be aware of it, but a lot of people actually do like to watch the traffic. It is quite a sight, especially from above."

Raven huffed. "If you wanted me to be more precise, you could have just asked, instead of treating me like an idiot," the girl said tersely.

Eeth sighed. "I was _not_ treating you like an idiot," he said.

"Could have fooled me."

Eeth's eyebrows rose even higher. "If I meant to treat you like an idiot, you would know it," he said. "It is hardly likely that I will, though. I do try to treat others with respect. Most of all my own padawan. I said nothing that could conceivably be construed as insulting or demeaning so I really do have no idea where your ideas come from. Now, do you want to go into the city or not?" He was becoming quite tired of the absurdity of this conversation.

At this point Raven's frown could not get much deeper. It was down to what she wanted more; informing her master how much of an ass he was, or going out into the city. Given that the former would undoubtedly end in a lesson on respect, Raven chose the latter. "I do, but I haven't been into the city much. In fact, I think I can count the amount of times on my hands. I can't give you coordinates."

"Alright then," Eeth said calmly, standing up. "We can go to Maktab Market. It is very popular on Friday nights, crowded, noisy and filled with all the species Coruscant has to offer. And not too far from the Temple either. As long as you do not mind 'a little dirty'?"

Raven was not entirely placated, but what was her alternative here? Continuing to argue would end up with her staying home. Thus: "No, dirt and I are on a first name basis. When can we go?" she questioned, getting to her feet and tossing the abused pillow aside.

"If you have no more homework than you can manage tomorrow afternoon," Eeth said, "we can go right now."

Raven jumped up from the couch at hearing this, her ire momentarily forgotten. "Nothing that I can't do tomorrow, promise!" Raven grabbed a tie and pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail. Her hair was still not long enough to do much else with it, but she was planning on changing that. Now that Raven was a padawan, her hairstyle was up to her as long as it was not ridiculous and did not interfere with her training, Eeth had said.

Eeth nodded. "Very well. Let us go, then."

Five minutes later, they made their way to the Temple's speeder garage where Eeth picked a speeder and drove off.

"Which parts of Coruscant do you know?" he asked her while they were cruising down one of the large airlines.

Raven was far too busy looking around at the buildings zooming by below her to give an immediate response. She couldn't believe how much went on outside the Temple. In the short time they had travelled, she had already seen four separate cases of enforcement speeders in pursuit, and if she didn't know better, she would have sworn she had seen someone leap right out of a perfectly good speeder. "Um, I don't know many. I've been to the theatre and the Corella stadium with my crèche twice," she told him, and then she was suddenly engrossed in some commotion going on below and lost her train of thought.

The edges of Eeth's mouth twitched. "Obviously watching the traffic is not as boring as some people might think," he remarked.

"Well, maybe not the traffic as such, master, but the weirdos controlling them are certainly worth a look," Raven replied, disinclined to restart this debate with him.

As she had the last time, Raven watched Eeth like a hawk as he piloted. The instrument panel seemed slightly different from the ones used for Temple sims, but it was still a subject she found fascinating. She always had.

"Two or three cycles from now, we can get you enrolled in a speeder class if you are interested," Eeth remarked, noticing her fascination with the controls. "You will not be allowed to drive on Coruscant for a while, but it might be useful on missions."

"If I am interested!? For real? Yes, I'm interested. I know some of the theory, I've just never been allowed to practice." Raven considered her comment for a moment before hedging. "Of course that can all change now." Her intent was clear. Raven was pretty sure what he was going to say, but then again, she never could tell with Eeth; he was unreadable most of the time.

"No, it cannot," Eeth said crisply, steering into a huge garage building. And that was that.

"Spoilsport," Raven grumbled under her breath.

Ignoring this, Eeth led her out of the garage and through a number of wide and increasingly crowded corridors into a gigantic covered market. It was so huge that one could not see the other side from where Eeth and Raven were standing and it was absolutely crammed with merchants, food stalls and beings of all species, some of whom were flying overhead. There was a tremendous noise, and Eeth and Raven were almost immediately sucked into the stream of people forcing their way through the narrow aisles.

"I am sorry if this is embarrassing to you, but we really have to hold hands, I think," Eeth shouted into Raven's ear in order to make himself heard. He grabbed her hand and pulled her along.

Embarrassed? Raven couldn't care less as right now all she cared about was not being trampled into the ground! Eeth was bigger and was doing an excellent job of clearing them a path.

"Check it out," she said excitedly, gesturing to a holo stand. The stand was huge! Some holos were stacked with only the spine showing, whereas others, the more desirable choices, were displayed on a tall backboard that was at least three meters high. When Eeth stopped so she could look, Raven wasted no time in flicking through the huge selection, completely oblivious to the large Besalisk man peering at her from behind the counter. "Seen it, seen it, eww! I don't wanna see it!" she rambled to herself, placing the holo titled 'The Yentles' back so quickly one might have thought it were on fire.

"Hello there, young lady! Perhaps I can interest you in something a little less painful?" The merchant passed her a copy of "Sith Wars". Her padawan braid had not gone unnoticed to this man and he had every intention of using his knowledge to make the sale.

Raven looked up at Eeth, the question unasked.

"Your allowance is yours to spend," Eeth said. "Of course, at the price of this movie, there would not be much left for other purchases, but that is up to you. As long as the film is not age-restricted, you may buy it."

Raven turned the thing over in her hand and frowned. It was, but mildly so! "It's only +14," she said in a whiny tone that conveyed exactly what she thought of that restriction. "Would you be mad if I

watched it? Even though it's still considered a children's film? It could even turn out to be educational." She grinned at the latter and shot him a mischievous look.

"Well, you may watch this educational movie as soon as you turn 14, then," Eeth said plainly. "I very much doubt that your education is hazarded by this delay."

Raven huffed. "You can't know that for sure. It might be, and then it will be all your fault."

"I am prepared to take that risk," said Eeth, stony-faced.

Disinclined to press the issue, she placed the holo neatly back amongst the others, much to the storekeeper's displeasure. He gave Eeth a dirty look and folded one set of arms in a clearly annoyed gesture.

"Is there anything you want to look at?" Raven asked Eeth as they started moving again. She didn't want to hog all their time.

"Padawan, I know this market," Eeth replied patiently. "We came here because you requested an outing. We can look at anything you are interested in, we can explore, or we can have a drink in a café up on the gallery." He pointed to the upper level of the market hall that provided a good view of everything.

"I was just being considerate," Raven defended herself.

Unfortunately, just about everything good was way out of her price range, not that she minded; getting out of the Temple was worth it. Eventually, she decided on sweets, because you can't go wrong with sugar.

"Woah," she said, taken aback by the choice available at the small café. "Can I order this?" she asked, pointing to a delicious looking chocolate square covered in what she hoped was fudge.

"You may, although I have to point out that Velorian chocolate tends to look better than it tastes," Eeth replied. "Still, if you would like to try it, have a go."

Raven thought about that. And then she chose a caramel slice. If there was one thing she had come to know about Eeth, it was to take his advice whenever food was concerned. They pulled up a couple of chairs which gave both of them an aerial view of the markets below. Raven drew her attention back to the table and took a sip of her tea, which she would try to 'acquire' a taste for every now and then. "Yeckk!" she groaned, pulling a most unattractive face. She turned her head to glance at a small Twi'lek girl sitting at the next table who had found her expression humorous and now giggled while pointing at her. Raven smiled bravely and playfully poked her tongue out at the youngster, who grinned and crossed her arms in mock annoyance.

Eeth smiled indulgently at the scene and leaned back to enjoy his own tea.

Raven straightened in her chair at catching Eeth's smile and tried to pretend she wasn't enjoying acting the goat with the kid. Of course she totally was! But she didn't want Eeth to think she was a little kid or anything. After all, Raven wanted to go on missions, build lightsabers and do grown-up things. This time when she took a sip of the tea she remained stoic, much to her audience's disappointment.

"Thanks for bringing me, master," Raven told him.

"There is nothing wrong with going out into the city occasionally," Eeth replied peacefully. "As long as it does not interfere with your duties, of course."

"Yes, because that would be a real tragedy," Raven said dryly, a very slight smile on her face. She yawned and gave her little Twi'lek friend a wink as the family moved to leave the table.

After a while, Eeth decided that it was time for them to head back to the Temple. It took them close to an hour to make their way back to their speeder through the crowds the market hall was packed with, and it was nearly dinner time when they returned to the Temple, laden with boxes of food that Eeth had bought at a Careenian food stall on their way.

Raven was busy trying to negotiate the door, quite unsuccessfully, while juggling the box she was carrying. It wasn't heavy by any means, just unwieldy. She heard Eeth rounding the corner and quickly rushed the box to the kitchen bench when he opened the door for her.

They set the table and Eeth laid out the Careenian dishes he had bought. Knowing what a poor eater Raven could be, he served her a small portion; she could always have more.

Raven, however, wasn't hungry in the slightest as she had gotten stuck into her stash of sweets earlier. She wrinkled her nose, unconsciously pushing the food around her plate with her fork.

Eeth watched this for a while. When she did not stop pushing around her food, he said: "Padawan," giving her a warning look and pointing at her plate.

"Ug!" But that was the extent of her complaints and Raven started eating. After Eeth had dragged her from the dining hall by the ear for trying to swindle her way out of eating her food, she was not keen on a repeat.

After another ten minutes or so had passed, Eeth had finished his meal and was now sipping patiently at his tea. Raven took one last mouthful of her own dinner; she had gotten at least half of it finished.

"May I be excused, pleeease?" she hedged.

"No," said Eeth. "You haven't finished your food."

"But it's cold," Raven whined.

"Reheat it, then," he said. "It is not all that much. You cannot possibly be full to the bursting after what little you have eaten, and the food is not all that revolting either."

Raven couldn't help but stomp her foot at the order. She didn't want to admit to having eaten too many sweets earlier as Eeth was unlikely to be sympathetic to that. But what else could she do?

Eeth just raised a stern eyebrow at that little outburst, but did not comment. He did, in fact, suspect that having eaten too many sweets was behind all this. That was not a type of behaviour he wanted to encourage.

Irritated, the padawan reheated her food, all the while muttering about the unfairness of this all. Of all his rules, the 'finish your food' one was by far the most annoying.

"Padawan, stop sulking," Eeth said firmly. "If finishing a small serving of food is really beyond you, there will be no more sweets the next time we go out."

Raven weighed up her options here, and then she started eating. "Bully."

"Only when necessary," Eeth said, unperturbed. He had been called a bully more than once by Lakhri and had decided to simply embrace the term as something that was part of his job description, as master of a Jedi padawan.

* * *

"What are you reading?" Raven asked sometime later, tilting her head to one side to get a better look at his screen. She had reluctantly eaten the rest of her food, done her homework and visited the padawans' lounge. Now she was tired, and maybe a bit bored.

"A report on economic loss caused by weapon smuggling," Eeth replied, showing her a long text with a couple of viewgraphs. "I will have to moderate a hearing tomorrow morning while you are in your first aid class. I need the information."

Raven concentrated on the data pad for a moment, and then she sat down beside him and hugged her legs into her chest.

"Ten percent loss to government profit, due to smugglers!" She shot him a slightly confused look, almost certain she was going to miss the point. "Is that why the government has upped the tax on all weapons sales for that planet?" she said, pointing to the second graph. "Simply because they are losing out on claiming tax from what's been swiped?"

"Partly," Eeth replied. "Taxation is only one of the problems at stake, but sadly, it is what most motivates the Senate to act."

"So they can argue over whether to give aid to a struggling planet for months before doing anything. Yet as soon as something affects their credit flow, it gets immediate attention. How can you stand it? I hate politics."

"It is not as easy as all that," Eeth said with a slight smile. "How are they supposed to get struggling planets back on their feet without tax income? Even the Jedi Order costs money. We work for free, but we need clothes, food, the Temple needs maintenance; then there are our speeders, our starships, our mission equipment… We would be hard-pressed to do any good without all that."

"I know they need taxes. It's their priorities that bug me. They take months to do anything that needs fast action, and take forever to do anything about those issues which, coincidentally, directly affect their credit flow." She shot him a grin. "Lowfac used to say that politicians are to be treated with the same kind of gentle care and caution you'd give to a baby Acklay." Even if the subject was politics, Raven was enjoying Eeth's company.

Eeth looked amused at the comparison. "Well, he is right. I am not saying I approve of each and every choice the Senate makes. And there are certainly many politicians whose personal motivation is less than honourable. But many of them are actually decent and hard-working persons. Unfortunately, the slow procedures and the bloated administrative system make it hard to finalise decisions – _any_ kind of decision, even where taxation is concerned. We have been struggling over this tax issue for far too long."

"You could always gather a bunch of the masters and organize a mass mind whammy. I'm pretty sure that would bring an immediate end to the struggling." Raven couldn't keep a straight face, not that she was trying hard.

"The Jedi Code does not allow us to do such things," Eeth said solemnly. "We cannot claim to know best how things have to be done and then impose our will on everyone else. Despite all their flaws, we are loyal to the Senate and to the Republic. And now, I think, it is time for our evening meditation and then for you to go to bed."

"Yes, Master," Raven said through a yawn, unfazed by the fact that her joke had fallen flat. Today had been exciting, but tomorrow she had her first aid mission class which she was looking forward to. And of course on Sunday was the pièce de résistance; their zoology field trip to Mount Akemi!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Hi, everyone. Sorry for having taken so long but life has to take precedence over leisure, unfortunately. Until the holiday season is over, we might continue being slow. If you follow the story or favorite it, you will be notified whenever there's a new chapter. Thanks for sticking with us! This chapter was a lot of fun to re-write and we hope you enjoy it.

* * *

Sunday morning, Eeth was having the usual struggle waking Raven.

"Padawan," he said sternly. "Do you want to sleep in or do you want to go on your field trip?"

Raven hated mornings, but she hated 'morning master' even more. She had successfully managed to block out most of what he had said, but the words 'field trip' had worked their way through her pillowed shield. She sprang up, pillow still clutched in her arms and her hair looking like a gundark nest.

"Did I miss the shuttle!?"

"No, but you will if you do not get up _this_ instant," Eeth said firmly, pulling away her pillow. "And if you continue raising such a fuss in the mornings, I will ground you from further field trips. You might be under the impression that I particularly enjoy fighting with you for your blanket and your pillow every morning. Well, I do not."

"Grumpy! And I thought it was me who didn't like mornings," she teased him but got out of her bed just to be on the safe side.

"You might not like mornings but you need to learn to deal with them," Eeth replied sternly. "Now get dressed. There is not much time left for meditation and breakfast."

"Yes, master," Raven replied and dashed for her refresher. It was never a good strategy to piss him off so early on in the day, but somehow she had managed.

As usual, a shower did Raven a world of good and she soon felt wide awake. She dressed quickly, grabbed a spare hair tie from her bathroom cabinet and moved to the common room where Eeth was reading a datapad. She sidled up to him with a grin on her face.

"Can you do this for me today, pleease?" There was no way Raven would ever admit to this, but she had a bit of a crush on Granzien. Mostly, boys were gross! But Granzien? She kinda had a soft spot for him.

Eeth raised his eyebrows. "Looking to impress Granzien, are you?" he asked wryly, hitting the nail on the head as usual. The admiring way in which Raven talked about the man had not escaped him, and it was in line with what he had heard about Granzien's reputation with the girls. Personally, he thought he was not the best role model Raven might have chosen. But since the man happened to be her teacher, Eeth was not going to let on to his misgivings.

"Eww! No!" she lied through her teeth! "I just don't want to look like a noob." Raven now flushed so red that she thought her ears would catch fire any second.

Eeth smiled slightly. "Alright then. Sit down here, I will do your braid. And then it is high time for our meditation."

When they had meditated and had a quick breakfast, Eeth pushed Raven towards the door. "Now hurry, or they will leave without you," he said. "Of course, if you want to help me clean our quarters instead…"

"Hmm." The padawan pretended to ponder this and then jumped out of arm's reach. "I think I'll pass. Have a good day, master." She shot him a cheeky grin and took off for the platform.

A short time later she was sitting next to Bindi, a Twi'lek girl who was friends with Orion and whom Raven had befriended during her first night at the padawans' lounge. The two chattered non-stop the entire trip, only pausing long enough to hear the pilot announce that they would arrive shortly and to find their seats. Not that either girl had shut up long enough to leave theirs.

* * *

"I can't wait to see what it looks like for real," Bindi said enthusiastically as they made their way down the ramp.

"Me neither. It's not all that often I get to leave the Temple. Oh! Now that I think of it, here." Raven reached into her pocket and pulled out a couple of wrapped sweets. "I managed to con Eeth into a pre-field trip 'field trip'."

"Thanks! Apple's my favourite flavour!"

Raven smiled. She was a thoughtful child, and it made her happy to see her friend happy. The two were sucking on the hard candy when Granzien exited their shuttle, a line of besotted, female followers in tow.

Granzien was a tall, lanky human whose long brown hair was showing streaks of grey and was carelessly tied back with a leather ribbon to show a single silver earring. His robes were rather worn, he was wearing very old leather boots, and he managed to look absolutely stunning despite this, or maybe because of it. His zoology classes tended to be very popular with humanoid girls.

"Welcome, everyone, to Mount Akemi on the planet of Tara," he said when the class had gathered at the exit of the shuttle landing pad. "Mount Akemi hosts a strongly protected wildlife reserve. We were lucky to have obtained permission to visit it. The number of visitors is strictly limited, so we are the only group at this time of the day. The reason we are visiting Mount Akemi today is to give you an impression of what wildlife looks like in contrast to settings involving domesticated animals. Next week, we'll be visiting a farm on a different region of this same planet. Having spent all your lives on Coruscant, you might be under the mistaken impression that rural life, whether on a farm or in a wildlife reserve, is pretty much the same. It is not. What we will see today is relatively close to unspoilt nature. Things used to be like that on many planets but their number is dwindling."

He paused and looked around the group; all padawans were listening to him intently. With a satisfied nod, he continued: "Before we set off, a few rules. Basically, don't touch anything and stick to the paths. Don't pull off your boots since there are poisonous snakes around. The paths are clear from poisonous plants, but the undergrowth isn't. There are a number of harmless day-active animals around, but please don't succumb to the temptation of stroking and feeding them. We don't want to disturb the ecological balance of this wonderful piece of nature. Besides, you might end up poisoning them with your food or infecting them with your germs. If you are in any doubt about whether something you'd like to do is appropriate, ask me before you do it. And, of course, stay with the group. Don't run ahead, don't stay behind, don't follow a different path. That's all so far. Any questions before we set off?"

The class collectively shook their heads, no.

Bindi rolled her eyes at the group of girls who had rushed to walk closest to the handsome Jedi master. "Honestly, I don't see the attraction!" Bindi said.

"I think he's positively charming," Raven said, grinning towards the tall master.

Bindi made a gagging noise and faked chocking, which much to her disappointment was completely wasted on her swooning friend.

Raven stopped dead in her tracks, her swooning forgotten when she felt a tiny pang of pain through the Force. She knelt down very carefully, reaching out her hand into the undergrowth, concentrating hard on not frightening off the small creature she had just managed to glimpse as it darted back under the fern.

"Raven! We have to keep with the rest of the group!" Bindi admonished.

"Shhh! You'll scare it!" Raven said in a forceful whisper.

"What are you doing?! You heard Granzien, he said don't touch anything!"

Raven ignored her friend's warning and continued holding out her hand, soothing the creature with her presence.

"Com'ere, little one, I won't hurt you," she cooed. Much to Bindi's surprise, a tiny green lizard-like creature with wings limped out onto Raven's outstretched hand.

"Put it down! It might bite you," Bindi warned, jumping back a few feet.

"Nah, he won't bite me. Set me on fire is more likely. It's a scorcher."

Bindi gave her friend an exasperated look that summed up exactly what she thought of that response.

"Go get Master Granzien, he'll know how we can help him," Raven suggested and concentrated all her efforts on soothing the small creature.

* * *

"Padawan Raven, please put him down," Granzien said in an exasperated tone of voice after he had been escorted by an equally exasperated Bindi to where Raven was crouching. "You heard me, didn't you? You should not touch the wild animals."

"But it's hurt!" she argued, holding the scorcher close to her chest. "Surely you don't mean to leave it here, defenceless, to be killed by predators?"

"Well, leaving unspoilt nature to its own devices means that some beings will end up being killed by other beings, unfortunately," Granzien replied, still sounding rather exasperated. "But this one will most likely not die. Young scorchers are good at hiding and recover extremely quickly, and they have no natural enemies due to their thick scales. It will be fine by tomorrow if you just leave it alone. Now come on. We still have a lot of ground to cover. You are holding everyone up." He stood up and headed back to the rest of the group.

"Yes, Sir," Raven said, but she was far from placated. She waited until Granzien was busy addressing the many questions her find had elicited from the group of girls seeking his attention. "Fine tomorrow my ass!" she muttered when Granzien was out of earshot and slipped the little guy inside her lapel.

"Raven! Put it back, you heard him…"

"Yeah, I heard him. It doesn't mean I agree. After all, even my master thinks he's unorthodox. I can't be the first to disagree with his judgement. Teacher or not, I'm not leaving this poor little thing here to die, and don't you go snitching either." Raven shot her a reproachful look.

"Of course I won't snitch, I'm no grass! I just don't see how you plan to pull this off? So, you smuggle it back to the Temple, and then what? Your master will skin you alive if he finds that thing in your quarters."

"I know what I'm doing, and I'm certainly not going to let him die just because I'm too cowardly to risk saving its life. Eeth will know how to help, and once he's fixed, I'll think about considering the consequences of disobeying Master Granzien."

Bindy wasn't convinced, but what else could she do here? She wasn't about to rat out her friend, hell, no! That left one option: help her succeed! Which was exactly what Bindy did.

Master Granzien did not notice anything for the rest of the trip. The hike up Mount Akemi was exhausting, and he was busy giving a lot of explanations while being beleaguered by his female fans. After a quick lunch on a plateau near the mountaintop, they climbed the remaining part of the way, rested for a few minutes and then started their descent. Most of the class, although used to physical exertion, were rather worn out by the time they finally arrived back at the shuttle late that afternoon.

"I hope you enjoyed this trip," Granzien said with a smile when they were all on their way to Coruscant. "We will talk more about the planet of Tara in next week's lessons. On our next excursion, you will get to know the other side of the planet."

It wasn't long before Raven and Bindi were exchanging their goodbyes on the platform. At that point, Bindi noticed the Jedi master becoming suspicious and suddenly taking an interest in Raven's awkward movements. Thinking quickly, she shoved Raven towards the door. Run, her eyes said as she turned to intercept Granzien.

"Master Granzien!" she gushed. "Can you explain why suidworms are dangerous to soft-skinned species? I got that one wrong on my exam."

Raven was still impressed by her friend's noble sacrifice when she walked carefully into their quarters, mindful of the small, now sleeping scorcher still tucked into her lapel. She could not sense Eeth's presence at all, which was a relief. Throwing her cloak over the rack, she wandered into the common room. Her attention was immediately drawn to their spare datapad that was left in the middle of the coffee table.

Eeth had had to leave in a hurry, but had taken the time to scribble a note for his padawan.

"Padawan,

I have been called to an urgent hearing at the Department of Justice, and I might be home late. Please go to the dining hall for dinner. Mind your curfew, and do not forget your evening meditation. I will see you tomorrow.

Eeth"

Raven read the instructions over a few times. They were not difficult or anything, but tiny nails digging into her chest were keeping her somewhat preoccupied! She began fumbling through various cupboards in the kitchen, looking for something suitable to keep the scorcher contained while she was out. Eeth's casserole dish would do; it had a slotted top to let steam out which would work perfectly as a mini atrium for her scorcher. A tea-towel was scrunched up for bedding, and an egg cup placed in a corner for water. Perfect! Now, to make it sleep!

It took her about half an hour to lull the creature off to sleep. Her gift was strong, but Raven was still young and had received very little training in enhancing her skill with animals.

She spent a rather enjoyable evening with Orion whom she had tracked down in the padawans' lounge. She was so happy to be talking to him that she almost forgot the time and only just managed to reach her quarters at an acceptable pace by eight.

It was well past midnight when Eeth returned from the hearing, feeling rather worn out. Sensing that Raven was asleep, he didn't bother to check her room, but went to bed right away.

* * *

Raven leapt out of bed like she'd been shot out of a cannon! She had felt something jump on her. She had her lightsaber in hand in a heartbeat, and was about to ignite the blade when she noticed the tiny scorcher looking up at her curiously. How the Force he had escaped was beyond her! Apparently, it was trying to weigh up if his saviour was still a friend or had become a foe. Raven groaned. It was 4:45 in the morning, and her troubles weren't going to end there. The scorcher went with instinct and took off into their common room. There was food in there, he could smell it.

"Buggershit!" Raven attempted to soothe and coax him back to the casserole dish but she was still half asleep! She had also had limited training in this so she was forced to rely on pure instinct here which did not seem to be enough to summon the scorcher back to her room.

With nothing else left to do, Raven crept into the common room to try recapturing him. Spotting her little runaway's tail disappearing beneath the couch, she carefully knelt to grab him, and then, she withdrew her hand with lightning speed as an ominous flash of orange light shot out the other end of the couch, hitting the bottom of the curtain. "Fuck!" She clamped a hand over her mouth and then grabbed their tablecloth to smother the fire before it could shoot up the curtain. It was fortunate for the well-being of their quarters that a scorcher's fire was quite small; only tiny spits and starts that took some time to 'refuel'. Still, it was enough to burn holes in stuff!

Not sure what to do first, she abandoned the now extinguished, albeit still smouldering, curtain, making a dive for the little creature that had just made a run for it under their couch. Skidding across the floor on her stomach, she managed to grab him and now lay with half her body wedged under the couch, desperately trying to calm him. Her efforts were far more successful this time, and although she sustained a few scratches, the scorcher was no longer frightened. Now, she just had to get him back to his atrium, put something more secure over his enclosure and hide the curtain.

Eeth was woken up by a commotion in the common room. Glancing at the clock, his suspicion that it was far too early even by _his_ standards was confirmed. Whatever could have made his morning-hating padawan get up at this time?

He heard a suppressed yell and got up to investigate. Opening the door to the common room, he noticed a burnt smell as well as the bottom half of his padawan sticking out from under the couch.

"What exactly are you doing there, padawan?" he asked icily.

Raven jumped at hearing Eeth's voice, cracking the back of her head on the underside of the couch.

"Owch!" And it wasn't just Raven who'd gotten a fright; the scorcher was now back on high alert. She just managed to calm it enough to slide her top half out.

Raven was going to tell Eeth about the scorcher but thought the story might go over better if the explanation could be made in the morning. With a calmer scorcher. Who remained INSIDE his casserole dish and was not burning down their quarters! Stumbling to her feet with one hand behind her back clutching the scorcher and the other rubbing at her head she gave what she hoped was a casual expression: "Master! Um, what are you doing here?" The padawan flinched at the absurdity of her question; the man lived here, for Force's sake.

Eeth frowned. "The more important question is," he said coolly, "what are you hiding behind your back?" He assumed that whatever it was, it was what Raven had been looking for under the couch. What could have possibly caused the burning smell, he had no idea. But he was certainly going to find out before any of them went back to bed!

"Nothing," she replied fast, angling so that he couldn't see and thinking herself insane; of course it was freaking something! "I mean, it's nothing. It's under control. Can we talk about it tomorrow?" She asked, backing into her room. Her concentration was wavering, though, and a tiny spot of flame shot out from behind her back. It hit nothing, but there was no way she could explain away fire shooting out of her ass. Raven didn't try. She just stood there, not knowing what to do now.

"Padawan, we will talk about it right now," Eeth snapped. "You will tell me precisely what is going on here. If you are unwilling to do so on your own accord, I will fetch my paddle and make you. So?" At a quarter to five in the morning, Eeth did not feel like leaving room for stalling and evasive answers.

So, those weren't very good options. Reluctantly, and very slowly, Raven brought the scorcher from behind her back. "I found him injured and left for dead on our field trip yesterday. I was going to tell you about it tomorrow, I swear."

Eeth frowned. "Does Granzien know about this?" he inquired. If yes, he could not fathom what had gotten into the man!

Raven shook her head. "No. He wanted me to leave it there to die, but I couldn't."

"So you asked him, he said no, and you took the animal anyway?" Eeth asked incredulously, and received a nod. "Padawan, did he tell you that scorchers are supremely resilient? Does this one look to you as if it is on the verge of dying?"

"Well, no. And yeah, he did, but it had to survive long enough to recover. I wanted to save it, and I thought the focus would have been on saving a life, not on disobeying Granzien." Raven didn't like the look on Eeth's face and was starting to lose hope that he was going to agree with her here.

"It would almost certainly have survived long enough to recover," Eeth said sternly. "More importantly, if obeying your teacher was not your top priority, then your priorities are wrong. Master Granzien is the expert here, and you would have done well to trust him."

Raven looked down at the little guy in her hands. He had calmed down a lot now, possibly because he'd already spat two fireballs. Her nose wrinkled at Eeth's comment on her priorities. "Master Granzien didn't care about it. He wanted to leave it there!"

"Yes, for good reason," Eeth snapped. "One of them being that scorchers do not belong into houses. What, exactly, did this scorcher burn in our common room, may I ask?"

At the time she had rather thought saving a life was worth the consequences of disobeying Granzien, but now she wasn't feeling so courageous. "Just the curtain. I'll pay for it, promise." Raven meant it, too. She didn't know how much a curtain cost but surely it couldn't be that much. They weren't even nice curtains!

"It is not the cost of the curtain that concerns me," said Eeth curtly. "It is your disobedience and willfulness. Master Granzien cares about lives just as much as every other Jedi, and possibly a lot more; some would say, more than reasonable. He certainly knew that the scorcher would not have the least problem in surviving. They do not have natural enemies on Tara, and they are perfectly capable of defending themselves by spitting fire even when hurt. If master Granzien tells you to leave the scorcher where it belongs, it is not your place to question him – let alone break any number of rules meant for the protection of the nature reserve. Did you honestly expect me to be impressed?"

Okay, so now Raven was starting to feel guilty. However, the reasons she had done this in the first place were making it hard for her to admit that she had made the wrong call, and she felt compelled to defend herself. "No, I expected you to help! It's what I was trying to do, after all."

"Without having a clue what you were doing, obviously," Eeth said cuttingly, "and with no interest in listening to what your teacher has to say about the issue. Acting on your first impulse is rarely helpful to anyone. I will call Granzien and ask him to pick up the scorcher immediately. After that, we will discuss your abysmal behaviour at more detail."

"Wait!" Raven cuddled the scorcher to her chest. "He didn't care before, he won't now. What will he do with him?" She wanted to know.

"That, you may safely leave to _Master_ Granzien to decide," Eeth ground out, emphasising the man's title more than was absolutely necessary. "Who, as you may safely assume, does care. In contrast to you, he might even know what he is doing. Now stop with the backtalk. I have run out of patience with your attitude."

Raven blanched and fell silent; there was no way she was going to continue speaking after that.

Eeth turned brusquely and activated the comm unit.

"Granzien," he said when finally, after a long while, the holograph of a dishevelled-looking Jedi master appeared before him. "Imagine my surprise when I discovered this morning that my padawan snuck a scorcher back from her field trip and hid it in our quarters where it managed to burn our curtain."

"She what?" Granzien asked faintly, his eyes widening. 'At least this woke him up,' Eeth thought with grim satisfaction. 'Serves him right for not noticing she brought that creature here.'

"You heard me quite clearly," he said. "She brought a scorcher to the Temple. You are the expert here. Do something about it."

Granzien and Eeth had not got along well but in contrast to many others, Granzien had never been intimidated by Eeth. Nonetheless, he acknowledged that the man was right: it had happened in his class and was therefore his responsibility.

"I will," he said, regaining his composure fast. He was a Jedi, after all. "We will not be able to return it to Mount Akemi, though. No creature that has been removed from the habitat is allowed to return. I will have to talk to my contacts at one of Coruscant's zoos. The Equatorial zoo might offer the best environment. Give me half an hour. I will come to pick the scorcher up then."

"Alright," said Eeth. "Thank you." He might not be happy with Granzien, but he always made a point of showing a minimum of politeness.

Raven overheard their conversation. It was hard not to, given their tight living quarters. She wasn't happy about it. Apparently, because she had tried to save the scorcher, she had unwittingly condemned it to spending the rest of its life in a prison. It was almost too unbearable to think about, so Raven sat with her head down, quietly reassuring the little guy, even if it was far from how she felt herself.

Having ended the call, Eeth turned back towards Raven and said: "While we wait, I am going to make some tea. After Granzien has picked up the scorcher, I will explain to you very clearly why it is not a good idea to put your own judgement above your teacher's."

With this, he turned and strode to the kitchen, his demeanour making very clear that he was not pleased with any of this at all.

Raven watched him go, but whatever words she had ready to speak in her defence had suddenly left her. This was more serious than she had ever thought!

Eeth took his time preparing tea. Then he went to take a shower and get dressed. It was well past five am anyway, so he might as well receive Granzien properly and start the day.

Right on time, Granzien pressed the door chime. Eeth Koth was on the Jedi Council, after all. He should not be kept waiting; nor did he take kindly to it, from what Granzien remembered of his dealings with him.

"Master Koth," he said formally as Eeth opened the door, bowing.

"Master Granzien," Eeth replied just as politely, returning the bow. "Do come in."

Granzien stepped inside and looked at Raven who was cradling the scorcher to her chest, looking miserable. He was none too happy with the girl for having disobeyed him and caused all this trouble. With any other padawan, the first thing he would have done would probably be to ask her master to make sure she never did something like this again. However, with Eeth Koth's padawan, there was hardly a point. Eeth was bound to deal out an appropriate punishment, and then some, anyway. Granzien decided to make sure, instead, that the girl knew what she was going to be punished for.

Stepping towards Raven and sitting down in the armchair next to her, he said: "That was not a very wise choice you made, Padawan Raven. Do you know why that is?"

Despite wanting to make a run for the door, steal a speeder and flee with her scorcher back to Tara, Raven remained on the couch and pulled at the hem of her sleep shirt which was thankfully long enough to cover her underwear. "Because you told me not to," she replied by rote. But how Raven really felt about all of this was quite different.

"And why do you think I told you not to?" asked Granzien patiently. Eeth, feeling that he had better not interfere with this conversation, took a seat at the dining table and poured himself some tea. He could really use it right now.

Raven looked across at Eeth whom she could see seated at their dining room table from where she sat on their couch. Would he tell her off if she told the truth? Raven wasn't sure but she ploughed ahead in any case. "Because you didn't think he would need saving, when I did. I can sense how they feel, and this one was really hurt." Raven had to flinch a little at how that sounded; after all, she did have a bit of a crush on him and didn't want to make him feel bad.

"So your Force awareness comes with a gift for connecting with animals," said Granzien. "It's much the same for me with plants. And this, unfortunately, led me to do stupid things on occasion when I was younger because I acted on my impulses, against better judgment and without thinking things through. In the worst cases, I even acted against my superiors' explicit instructions. Much like you did with this scorcher. You could sense that he was hurt and you wanted to help which, by itself, is a good thing. You didn't have sufficient information to make such a decision, though. You didn't know whether taking the scorcher with you would help it heal; you didn't know what its chances of recovery were if left alone; and you didn't know that by taking it with you, you would prevent it from ever returning to its original habitat. Because you knew none of this, you should have trusted my judgment. You should have assumed that I know what I'm doing when I'm giving orders. That is why we ask for obedience from our young ones. Not because we want to bully them or force them to act against their conscience but because grown-up Jedi generally have a level of knowledge and understanding that youngsters don't. Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?"

Raven listened to what Granzien had to say, and again, she felt a pang of guilt for not having trusted him and thinking that she knew better. This was not the first time she had been told not to be impulsive, and that her superiors knew best. Raven knew it was her duty to obey. The problem was, her personality was such that it made the subjugation of her own will to another very difficult; it was the main reason the Force had paired her with a master of Eeth's calibre, she supposed. Again, she glanced over at Eeth who, and much to her frustration, wore the same unreadable expression he always did. Cuddling the scorcher close, Raven looked over at Granzien again. "I do. I'm sorry that I disobeyed you." She wanted to add a 'but I just wanted to help' after that, really she did, yet she didn't want to disappoint either Jedi with further arguments.

"Well, don't do it again," said Granzien mildly. He was not very good at scolding. "I assume," he added. "that this will not be the last time you face a dilemma over whether to save a being from death. And learning how to deal with such dilemmas in a mature, responsible way is extremely important. Sometimes, we cannot afford to do what feels right because saving one person or being will mean forfeiting the lives of others. This does not just happen in made-up cases in ethics class; it happens frequently in the course of missions. That is why we, as Jedi, of all people cannot afford to act on our impulses. We need to think before we act, even when something feels right. When you interfere with the ecological balance of wildlife preserves, the consequences can be unfathomable. In some cases, saving one animal might mean depriving another animal of its meal. That is a reality we have to accept. This scorcher would have been fine, though. No other animal eats them if they can help it."

Raven nodded. She got the theory, really, but it was just so much harder to put into practice. She hadn't wanted it to be eaten, even if that was unlikely.

Granzien rose from the armchair and held out his hands. "Give him to me now," he said. "I will bring it to the Equatorial zoo today. They have a good habitat for flame-throwing reptiles. Not quite the same as nature but the best I can offer him."

Raven held the scorcher close. "Why can't we just take it back to Tara? What harm could that possibly do? I'll even do it myself." And Raven would too!

At this, Eeth sent Raven a scathing wave of disapproval through their bond, causing her to flinch.

He left it to Granzien to talk, however. Granzien said: "Because Mount Akemi is a protected and closed ecosystem, in as far as that is possible when one has to rely on paying visitors for funding. You weren't even supposed to touch that scorcher, let alone take it to Coruscant. Animals that are moved into a humanoid environment often change their behaviour fast, which puts them at risk when returned. Especially young ones. They might also carry germs that could endanger other animals or plants there. The rules are clear and whether you like them or not, we will stick to them. On a practical level, I hardly imagine I'd ever be allowed to take another class on a field trip to Mount Akemi if anyone caught wind of this."

"Besides," said Eeth because he felt that this needed to be said, "as Jedi, we keep the laws, rather than try to find ways around them."

Raven frowned at this. He was always so by the books! It frustrated her even more!

"That, too, yeah," said Granzien carelessly, causing Eeth to scowl. "Now give it here."

Raven went from giving Eeth the stink eye, to wanting to cry. She had wanted to help save the scorcher and instead, she had pissed everyone off and condemned the poor thing to a life in prison. Her eyes became overbright as she hugged it close one last time. She did her best to convey that everything was going to be alright, that he was going to be safe with Granzien and safe in comfort for the rest of his natural life, but her own hurt over having caused all this in the first place was making that hard. Very reluctantly, Raven handed over the scorcher. He was mostly calm now, and also pretty worn out from the fireballs he had already spit.

Granzien accepted the animal gently and carefully with his right hand. He held the index finger of his left hand to the creature's tiny claws and allowed them to curl around it. Then he withdrew his right hand. The scorcher dangled from his finger, head down, blowing fumes of smoke; he was clearly a little upset at having to leave Raven's soothing influence but the familiar position calmed him down.

"This will do until I reach the zoology lab," Granzien said. "I will find him a fireproof carrying box there. You do have a gift for animals, padawan Raven. You should be trained to use it."

"She will be," said Eeth, a little offended at what he considered an attempt to give advice on how he should train his padawan. "Once she has dealt with the basics of her padawanhood."

"Of course," said Granzien politely. "May the Force be with you." He and Eeth bowed to each other. Then, Granzien left, the scorcher dangling from his finger.

Raven looked from Granzien to Eeth, then back again, her expression a mixture of sadness and surprise. She had not thought to hold the scorcher upside down like that. In fact, she had half expected to be off on another wild goose chase around their common room. Apparently, Granzien had skills she did not yet possess. Well, that was the case with just about every adult in the Temple so it probably shouldn't have been that much of a surprise. Raven returned his bow. She trusted that Granzien would do his best for the scorcher, although she would be lying if she said it made her happy; the scorcher belonged on Tara, not in a zoo, and it was her fault. A fresh wave of guilt washed over her. "Can I go back to bed, please?" she asked without meeting Eeth's eye.

"No," said Eeth. "You blatantly disobeyed your teacher, put your own judgment above his, and broke the rules of the nature preserve. Just think for a moment what it might have meant for the Jedi Order, and Master Granzien in particular, if you had been found out. If you believe I will simply let you go back to bed after all this, you are sorely mistaken."

It was a quarter to six by this point; he would have woken Raven in fifteen minutes anyway. More importantly, she was not going to get out of this unpunished. He rather thought there was little point in having another long talk with her because Granzien had already taken care of that. Eeth felt a mixture of guilt and annoyance over that fact. It should have been him, as Raven's master, to make her see sense, he felt; but then, he had not exactly been patient and understanding about the whole thing. Maybe he should have been. None of this internal thought process showed in his facial features, though; they were as impassive as they could be.

Just when Raven thought she could not feel any worse, Eeth proved her wrong. "I already said I'm sorry. I feel bad enough that the scorcher will never get to go home and it's all my fault. You don't have to make me feel any worse by rubbing it in." Raven was also feeling a bit put out that Eeth hadn't taken the time to be anything other than annoyed over her disobedience and reckless behaviour. Granzien had explained but Eeth didn't care about anything other than the fact that she had broken numerous rules! That hurt. Didn't he care?

Eeth did, in fact, care about a great deal of things. He was also supremely bad at showing it. Right now, he was not at all happy with the way this whole conversation had gone. More specifically, he felt that Granzien had come out of it looking a lot better than himself, which was rather unfair, given that it was up to him, not Granzien, to deal out the inevitable punishment. Under the circumstances, it was easy for Granzien to look good. It had always been way too easy for the man to look good, in fact!

Well, what was done, was done. There was no point in dwelling on it, and any feelings of guilt could be sorted out during meditation later. Right now, Eeth's priority was to make sure that Raven did not do anything like this again. Granzien had been completely right: getting carried away by one's emotions was one of the greatest hazards of life as a Jedi.

He gave Raven a penetrating look and said: "Master Granzien explained to you quite thoroughly why you were at fault here. Therefore, I will do you a favour and refrain from continuing to 'rub it in'. However, if you think that the consequences of your ill-advised decision save you from punishment, you are very much mistaken. Bring me the brown strap from the cupboard."

Raven did not, but neither did she want to do as he said. "No, mastttter! C'monnnn," she whined, bouncing around on the spot. She couldn't remember which one the 'brown one' was but it would be worse than the leather paddle he had used when she'd tried to swindle her way around the placement tests. That had hurt plenty bad enough!

"Do not even try it, padawan," Eeth said sternly. "You disobeyed your teacher outright, and you are well aware that there is a price to pay for disobedience around here. When did I ever give you the impression that I was going to tolerate the kind of behavior you displayed yesterday? Now bring me the strap unless you want to make things worse on yourself."

"Aww!" Raven whined, but obeyed; she had given up any hope that she would get out of this with the ability to sit down.

It was a small reprieve, if you could call it that? But the brown strap Eeth asked for turned out to be the smaller of the two that he kept in that damned cupboard. Stealing herself, she took the thing out and slammed the door shut. And then she dawdled back to where Eeth was now standing next to their dining room table, arms folded across his chest.

"Here then," she said, trying to be brave but failing.

"Thank you," said Eeth calmly, accepting the strap. "Go to your room, bare your bottom and lie down on your bed. Place two pillows under your hips. I will be with you in a moment."

"Whaa?" Raven gave him an owlish look. Stick pillows under her hips? Was he serious! One look at his unwavering expression said that he was. Now, Raven wasn't the modest type. That said, when it came to actually following through with those orders, she found herself standing there staring at her bed. The padawan looked from her bed, to the door, to her window and then back again before deciding that disobeying him would only make it worse. He had given her extra for stalling last time! Panicking, she dived onto her bed and started stuffing pillows under her; she was only wearing underpants as she was still dressed for bed, but she was going to wait until he got in here before pulling those down. There was just something about lying there with her bare ass up in the air that was not at all dignified!

Eeth entered the room after a short while, carrying the strap, and frowned.

"Bare your bottom like I told you," he said brusquely while taking up position at the side of Raven's bed.

Raven wanted to protest, but the truth was that she felt deserving of this. Even if she didn't entirely agree with the reasons they could not take the scorcher back to Tara, she knew that it wasn't going home and that was her fault for not listening to Granzien. Maybe if she had obeyed him, the scorcher would have been killed, but maybe it would have woken safe and sound on Mount Akemi, instead of in a zoo! Sniffling, Raven reached back and scrunched her pants down to her undercurve and then quickly buried her head into her hands.

"Padawan, you have to learn obedience," Eeth said gravely. "No matter what your intentions are, you have to obey the instructions your superiors give you. This is not a rule you are unaware of. And just for the record, if it was not for the fact that the creature's further destiny distresses you this much, I would certainly have considered this a case for the cane."

With this, he took aim, lifted the strap and brought it down across Raven's bottom swiftly.

This news was humbling. Raven had had one experience with Eeth's cane. It had been when she had gotten into a fight with Rayan just over a month ago, and it was now seared into her mind via her backside; it had hurt more than anything.

Raven had expected this to be painful. Corporal punishment was designed to hurt! However, Eeth seemed to be especially talented at making it feel like she were being murdered. Okay, so the first one is always the worst, Raven silently coached herself, her eyes squinting shut and her fingernails digging into the bed sheets with that first lick. The next few elicited yelps that increased in both volume and intensity. It wasn't as bad as the cane, but it certainly hurt plenty. Raven had had one experience with a strap before becoming Eeth's apprentice. But that had been only a single smack and it had been delivered to a fully clothed bottom. This stung and burned a lot worse!

Eeth brought the strap down six times, slowly and methodically. Then he paused, but only to switch sides. Raven deserved to be properly punished for this. He also thought that this might help her with the immense amount of guilt she seemed to be feeling. He was certainly going to tackle that during their evening meditation. For now, though, it was his priority to make her feel as sorry as she possibly could.

By six Raven was crying, so when Eeth stopped, she pushed herself up onto her elbows and twisted to offer her apologies. That had been horrible but she was going to live to sit another day. When she saw that he had just paused in order to switch sides, though, she started crying in earnest! "Wait, no more. It hurtttss!" Raven whined, a hand covering her backside. "I've learned, I've learned! I won't ever do it again." And the padawan really meant that too, because at this point, she would have said absolutely anything to keep him from giving her any more.

"Good," Eeth said grimly. "Because if you disobey your teacher this blatantly on a field trip again, I will not hesitate to use the cane. And that will not be the end of your punishment either. Take your hand away immediately unless you want to receive additional swats."

"Awww! Noo!" But Raven very reluctantly obeyed and moved her hands back in front of her. The last thing she wanted was extra! "How much more?" she wailed.

Eeth did not reply to this question. In his opinion, not knowing how much to expect made it that much harder to tough out the punishment. He had a lot of experience with toughing out punishments because that was what he had typically done. His master would have none of it; she had developed her own ways to break through his mental defences. Lakhri had typically tried to tough out his punishments whenever he had been resentful about them, which had happened often in his younger years. Eeth had dealt with that by making his punishments so harsh that there was no way to tough them out. This had not really helped with Lakhri's resentment, though. Eeth had realised at some point that his approach was doing more harm than good and he thoroughly regretted it now. To prevent this from recurring, when he had taken Raven as his padawan, he had decided to set a fixed number of strokes or swats before starting any of Raven's punishments. In this case, the number he was aiming for was a dozen. But he did not tell Raven that. He simply resumed bringing down the strap.

"WaitOww!" Raven bellowed, twisting at the waist. It was near impossible not to jump up and make a run for the door. Sure, it was not the deep, white-hot line of horror that the cane had produced, but it seemed to present its own set of challenges. It stung and burned!

Unperturbed by Raven's wails, Eeth stoically completed the dozen.

Not surprisingly, by the time he finally put the damned thing down, Raven was crying hard and mumbling pleas and unreasonable promises of stellar behaviour into her sheets. Both hands came back in an effort to rub out the sting, but it wasn't helping much.

Eeth returned the strap to the cupboard. Then he came back to Raven's room, sat down on the edge of her bed and waited silently for her to regain her composure.

Raven was still trying to rub out the sting when Eeth sat by her side, his weight causing her to roll into his back a little. She was no longer outright bawling, but nor was she happy. After a moment the padawan got to her knees and pulled up her underwear, hissing as she did so; it was nothing compared to what had caused it, though. Her sheet was damp with snot and tears, yet despite this, she seemed capable of producing more. She swiped at her face with the hem on her sleep shirt and leaned into Eeth's side, sniffling.

Eeth realised that Raven needed to shed a lot of tears, possibly over more than the pain of the strapping she had just endured. He rubbed her back lightly with his large hand without speaking, giving her time to cry it out.

Eeth was right. The guilt over having deprived the scorcher of its natural home was all-consuming. Thankfully, or perhaps not, depending on whose perspective was being considered at this exact moment, Eeth had done a thorough job of helping her to alleviate that. When after a few minutes Raven finally stopped sniffling, she pulled away from his side and swiped at her face and nose with the sleeve on her sleep shirt. "'M'sorry, master. It's my fault, I shouldn't have disobeyed Granzien." It was a short apology, but sincere.

"No, you should not have," Eeth agreed. "It is an important lesson to learn. I want you to meditate on it for half an hour now."

"Will you meditate with me?" Raven asked, giving him a watery and entirely piteous expression.

"Alright," said Eeth before he could help it. And once he had said it, he could hardly take it back. It was completely against his habit. He had no idea what had gotten into him!

If Raven were honest, she was a little surprised that Eeth had agreed to her request. The last time he had set meditation after punishment, it had felt rather punitive to her, even if that wasn't the intention. That Eeth was joining her would make the meditation seem less of a chore, as the padawan enjoyed meditating with him. It would also have the added side-effect of keeping her focussed and on target; if she couldn't hide the fact that she wasn't doing as he asked with him across the room, there was no chance when he was actually meditating with her. Raven slid off her bed, winced as she straightened and rubed both hands across her backside. That had hurt, and the expression on her face said as much. "Meditation mats?" Raven asked. This was where he had sent her last time, but now that Eeth was with her, would that change?

"You may continue to lie on your stomach if you like," said Eeth. "The position is not important as long as you are comfortable and able to link with me." He would not allow her to meditate lying down by herself since the likelihood of her falling asleep was too high, but he knew that when he joining her in the meditation, that was not going to happen.

It was a reprieve Raven wasn't going to argue. She fixed the pillows and lay back on her tummy, her eyes closing. Despite the fact that Eeth had handed her her ass, there was still quite a bit of guilt pent up inside her and Raven was grateful to him for guiding her through releasing it into the Force. Raven managed to isolate her misery and slowly but surely it melted away. It took quite some time to achieve, but Raven didn't mind; she was beginning to feel a little better.

Eeth could be patient when he felt it was warranted. Right now, it was. He only called the meditation to a stop when he felt that it could not possibly accomplish any more than had been achieved at this point.

"Are you feeling better, padawan?" he asked softly.

"Yes, master," Raven said through a yawn, and rolled onto her side so she could meet his eye. Her backside no longer stung, but kept up a steady burn that just wouldn't quit. Unable to help herself, the padawan gave him a pouty look. She was a hot mess. Her face was still tear-streaked, eyes red-rimmed and her hair was all over the place. She had lost a sock at some stage and spotted it lying on the floor by Eeth's feet.

Completely ignoring the pout, Eeth rose. "Go take a shower and get dressed," he said. "I will prepare some breakfast in the meanwhile. You need to go to school. If you are quick, I will just have enough time to offer some healing before you have to leave."

Raven didn't need telling twice. She jumped off her bed like a shot and was pulling off her shirt before she even made it into her refresher. Raven wanted that healing because having to sit on her ass through classes was not at all appealing. Suffice it to say, Raven made that shower in record time, and despite sending her back to dry her hair properly, Eeth managed to find time to do some healing. The day would not be unbearable, despite how it had started. Not unbearable, but still not entirely comfortable either. Eeth took away some of the discomfort, but he left some there, too!

That afternoon, Eeth was home when Raven returned from classes. Today they had a special training room booked and she was looking forward to it!

Eeth had prepared a quick lunch of soup and bread. When they had eaten, he set Raven to doing homework for an hour. Then they left for the obstacle course he had booked for them. It was a challenging one but he knew that Raven typically enjoyed challenging workouts.

"Do it without a saber the first time," he told her when they had arrived in the training room, dressed in workout clothes. "I will time you. The last time you did this without a saber, it took you twelve minutes and thirty seconds. Try to do it faster this time."

"'Course I can do it faster," Raven boasted, eager to get this show on the road. She moved to the starting point, crouched as if ready to pounce on an invisible acklay (those could come out of anywhere), and when Eeth gave the signal, she took off like greased lightning. The sandpit was vaulted with just enough space to allow for a decent launch onto the vertical netting. It was a tough climb but the padawan was certain she was making good time. It wasn't until she was crawling under the trip wires that her backside started to sting. Okay, so apparently sweat and a sore ass were not a good mix. Frowning, Raven persevered and skidded across the line like it were the home plate.

"Twelve fourty," Eeth said neutrally. "Do it again, faster this time."

"No way," The padawan stood, brushing herself off. "You didn't time it right."

Eeth gave her a steely look. "Maybe you will be faster the next time if you dispense with wasting your breath on complaints," he said coolly. "It might be worth trying. Now do it again."

"Maybe I would be faster if I didn't have a sore ass. You did it, so it's your fault."

Eeth's lips pressed into a firm line. He grabbed Raven by the arm, bent her forward, pulled her against his hip and delivered two ringing swats to her bottom.

"Tell me again whose fault it was that you were punished," he snapped without releasing his hold on her.

The yelps that Raven let out were not loud, per se. They were, however, ear-splittingly high-pitched. Sure, it hadn't been the worst pain imaginable but a) she had not been expecting it, (b her ass was already sore and (c she was sweaty which seem to amplify the lot. Her jaw squared and she squirmed to get free, but it only earned her another swat and that one hurt more. Seeing that there wasn't another way out of this, Raven stilled and gave a reluctant answer. "Mine. Lemme up, pleeease!"

Eeth did let her up but his glare told her clearly that she was walking on thin ice. "If you do not want to work out with a sore bottom," he said sternly, "refrain from doing things that will get you punished. It is as simple as that. I will not lower my standards just because you saw fit to blatantly disobey your teacher and suffered the consequences. Is that clear?"

Raven jumped up and down as he spoke, both hands massaging out the sting. "Yes, master, but now I'm going to be even slower," she whined. "Which is my fault," was added on quickly when she caught the expression on his face darken. Raven backed up to the starting point, hands raised in placation.

"It most definitely is," Eeth said grimly. "Now get going. And focus. I want to see an improvement."

Raven gave a curt nod, and then she took off like a shot. Grumpy!


	3. Chapter 3

Several weeks passed during which Raven kept her routine and gave Eeth little trouble. There were two further field trips that went without incident. Finally, the end of term was approaching. Eeth was a tad reluctant to let Raven leave on the second last field trip because her end-of-term exams were taking place the week after that and he had a hard time getting her to study as much as he thought she should.

"Alright, I will allow you to go," he finally proclaimed the night before the scheduled departure, after Raven had put in nearly a full day of studying. "I do hope you did enough in order to manage a B even in maths. I want you to do your best in your exams. The last field trip of the term might be something to look forward to while you do."

That one was scheduled for the Saturday after the exams and was going to take the group to the Akahiret cliffs, a stunning site that would allow them to watch seabirds but that also involved beaches. Eeth assumed Granzien had consciously saved that one for their last trip, as an end-of-term highlight. Tomorrow's field trip was more mundane: the destination was an industrial chicken farm on Pellebet.

When Sunday morning had arrived and Raven was ready to leave, he told her, like he had before each of the two previous field trips: "Now, I do not expect _any_ trouble from you today. You do what Granzien tells you, no matter what your personal feelings about the matter are. Is that clear?"

"Yes, master. Can I go now, pleeeease?" Raven asked, managing to keep the annoyance over being read her Miranda rights yet again out of her tone. Just. Well, it was the third time! Raven had spent all day yesterday in a semi-sulk because he had threatened not to let her go, and now that he had relented, the padawan wasn't going to do anything to jeopardise that.

"Yes, you may go now," Eeth said. "But if there is any further trouble, especially of the disobedience type, there will be no more field trips, and that might be the least of your worries. Now go. I hope you learn a lot!" It was precisely for that reason that Eeth had decided not to cancel this field trip; that, and Raven had actually ended up putting in a fair amount of study, if only under duress.

Raven gave a curt bow and took off out the door. Finally, she was free of class work and supervision! Given that there was nobody around to catch her out, she ran down the corridor and skidded to a halt at the lift that would take her to the shuttle bay. Today was going to be amazing!

Granzien waited until the class had assembled, throwing an exasperated glance at two stragglers, and led the padawans into the shuttle. When the hatch had closed, everyone had strapped in and the pilot had taken off, he addressed the class.

"Today," he said, "we are visiting one of the farms that produce a large proportion of Coruscant's egg supply. Specifically, they raise a type of fowl called chickens. Now, there are several possible ways to raise chickens. One of them is to have them run around in a fenced area, throw them a bit of grain occasionally and let them raise their chicks on their own, as you saw on the farm on Tara two weeks ago. This method provides for happy animals, but has the huge disadvantage of being quite costly. The other method is what you will see here: Chicks raised in breeding machines, and the grown-up chickens perched together in cages. Now, the farm we are visiting today, in contrast to some others, does at least stick to the legal standards of raising chickens. The chickens are well-fed, healthy, their cages are clean, the straw is changed every day and they have a minimum of space. Of course, their living conditions are still far from being ideal. There are many groups pushing for higher standards and stricter laws, and the Jedi are among them, but naturally, the farmers' lobby is against it. This is an ongoing political struggle that you might be able to better understand after having visited this farm."

Raven frowned. It hadn't sounded like a very good life for the chickens when Granzien had first spoken of it earlier in the week, and it sounded no better now. Still, maybe because they were born into it, the chickens didn't know any other way of life? It was something that simply couldn't be imagined unless one saw for themselves, which was why they were here today.

The flight was mercifully short. Pellebet was close to Coruscant, just like all the other planets they had visited. Raven still fidgeted, though, her leg bouncing up and down impatiently as Granzien spoke about the anatomy, diet and habits of domestic chickens.

"Something doesn't feel right," Raven said as their shuttle docked at the farm site on the planet of Pellebet.

Bindi took a moment and focused on the Force. "I don't sense anything. What's up?"

"I dunno." Raven shook it off and unbuckled her restraints. Whatever it was wasn't pressing enough to give her more cause for concern, and she was keen to get on planet and check things out for herself.

Bindi gave her friend a curious look. "You sure?"

"Course. It's nothing. C'mon, let's go."

What Raven could sense, and ultimately saw, was that the chickens captive in the tiny cages were not distressed or even unhappy; it was much worse. They seemed dead inside. Beaten by life. Bored to death! The feeling was heartbreaking. She looked from the lines of cages, to Granzien, and then to the man who was approaching. Raven was angry that they would allow this, and was doing her best to release that into the Force.

Granzien said quietly to the group: "Now, here comes the gentleman who will lead us through the farm. You may ask questions. However, I must impress upon you the need to be polite and non-judgemental, to refrain from accusations and, in short, to do nothing that would antagonise him. Understand?"

Granzien had done this field trip before, and he knew very well what kind of behaviour to expect from some of the more passionate animal-loving youngsters in his class. There was good reason for him to give this warning.

He greeted the farm hand politely and introduced him to the class.

"Hi everyone," said the burly Chalactan. "I'm Orenn and I'll show you around the farm today. The tour of the stables will take around two hours. Then there'll be a break. After that, we'll look at the breeding complex and the food production. Rest rooms are over there. If anyone has to go, let me know. Any questions before we set off?"

Orenn received a collective head shake from the group of Jedi students, most of which were either excited to get going, curious, bored or in one or two cases, feeling a tiny bit of what Raven was sensing. Raven bit her tongue. Yes, she had questions! But they were probably not going to fit Granzien's criteria of polite and non-judgmental and so she refrained.

They followed Orenn around the farm, learning about how it worked, how it made a profit and how the animals were raised and used to produce eggs. The longer Raven listened, the more irritated she became at what she perceived as the exploitation of life. She also knew that not everyone could feel what she felt, and that wasn't their fault. Still, when they returned to the lines and lines of cages and Orenn asked if there were any questions, as he had at each stop so far, Raven raised her hand.

"I have a question," said Raven, waving her hand urgently.

Granzien reluctantly acknowledged her. He had a bad feeling about this but he had to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"Your chickens…" Raven paused and tried to verbalise what could only be sensed without being rude. "They feel dead on the inside. They're depressed. Did you know that?"

Orenn raised his eyebrows. "They're chickens," he said. "They get plenty of wholesome food, fresh straw every day and they're safe from predators. That's more than they'd have in the wild."

Raven just looked at him. "I think," she said, sounding a lot like Eeth, "that these chickens would prefer to go without such 'comforts' if it meant their freedom. How would you like it if I stuffed you into a cage? I'd feed and water you too, of course. Just because they are chickens doesn't mean they don't need some sort of stimulation to remain sane."

Some of the class chuckled at Raven's suggestion which annoyed Orenn. Granzien was not happy with it either. It was not as if he approved of this type of farming but he had learned, over the years, that there was no point in needlessly antagonising people. He was still more than willing to attack them outright, but only when there was something to be gained from it. Right now, there was not, and he had told the class as much. He gave the children a semi-stern look and to their credit, they stopped laughing.

"I'm a Chalactan," the farmer said coolly. "These are chickens. There's a difference. Now if we can proceed?"

"Yes, we can," Granzien said quickly, giving Raven a quelling look. "I think we have exhausted this line of question, Padawan Raven," he told her quietly, but firmly.

Raven ignored Granzien's warning, her ire piqued at Orenn's dismissal of what she considered a valid point. "Wait a minute. Just because they are not humanoid, you believe it's acceptable to shove them into small cages that force them to do nothing but eat, shit, sleep and lay eggs twenty-four hours a day! What makes you think just because you are humanoid, your life is any more important than theirs, that they don't feel similar?"

"Well, I'm sentient, they are not," Orenn said, annoyance clear in his voice. "Now, I was hired to show you around the farm, not for leading an ethical debate, I believe."

"True," Granzien said apologetically, shooting Raven a look that was a good deal more exasperated than the last one. "Please go ahead. Raven, there will be no more questions or comments from you." Granzien could understand that a student who had a strong connection to animals through the Force would not feel good about any of this. And he was more than willing to discuss it with her, later. He was not willing to have her disrupt the field trip, however, and it showed in the expression on his face. She needed to learn to keep her opinions to herself at times, and to recognise those occasions.

"Yes, well obviously ethics are not your strong suit," Raven retorted in response to Orenn's statement, and again ignoring Granzien's warnings. How anyone could work here and not ask these sorts of questions was beyond her.

Orenn started, the look of faint annoyance replaced by one of anger. "Now look here, young lady…" he began. Granzien cut him off quickly by resting his hand on his arm comfortingly (and supporting that gesture by a tiny Force suggestion, but Orenn would never know that).

"Padawan Raven, it is obviously beyond you to keep a civil tongue in your head, under the circumstances," he said calmly. "Go back to the ship and meditate on the meaning of the word 'polite' while we complete our tour."

In a way, he felt for the girl, but at this point, he had to concede it was pointless to have her accompany them any longer. She had obviously not acquired the necessary self-restraint yet to handle her emotions in an appropriate way.

Orenn nodded in satisfaction, glaring at the girl.

Raven met Orenn's glare and returned it with one equally scathing, and then she aimed the same expression at Granzien. "You're sending me off! You should be sending HIM and his whole disgusting operation off."

"Meditate," Granzien repeated, the amount of calmness and understanding in his tone now considerably diminished. Instead, there was a hint of steel in his voice, and that did not happen often.

Okay, so Raven was not the easiest to intimidate. In fact, with Eeth as her master, she was fast developing an immunity to efforts at intimidation. However, with that came a certain sense of self-preservation; this was not a battle she could win and she knew it. Thus, the padawan turned on her heel and strode off for their ship, a tiny storm cloud raging showers of hell above her head as she went. Raven didn't blame Granzien for this, not entirely. Still, why hadn't he called them out on this? it was disgusting! Meditate, she muttered as if the very word was a personal affront.

Finally, and after a detour to the northern side was cut short due to some roaming farmers, Raven arrived at the shuttle. She had calmed down a bit now, yet was still decidedly unhappy. "Exiled," she told the pilot in way of explanation, when he lowered the hatch to let her in.

The pilot raised a brow. This wasn't his first gig with the Jedi Temple, nor was Raven the first padawan to be sent back to his shuttle. "Bad day, huh?"

"You could say that," replied Raven.

"What are you in for?" the pilot asked.

His turn of phrase had Raven smiling in spite of herself. "Honesty."

"Mmm, that can be a bitter pill to swallow," the man agreed.

"Tell me about it. Adults…" she grumbled while flopping into the co-pilot's chair.

The pilot, who coincidentally had been inside the cockpit when Raven had entered, gave her a meaningful look. "I'm sure your teacher didn't send you back here to help me co-pilot the ship." It was said gently; he did feel for the kid, after all.

"I know, I know. I'm going." Raven got up and huffed, pouted and generally sulked her way back to her seat where she sat to do as Granzien instructed.

Orenn and Granzien, in the meanwhile, took the class to a garden where they were to have lunch and discuss their findings. The students were, of course, critical about the way the animals were held here, but none of them were as passionate about it as Raven had been. Their questions were largely polite and constructive. Granzien was pleased to see that they applied some of the information he had given them in class to making proposals for improvement. Of course, Orenn wasn't overly enthusiastic at receiving proposals from a bunch of schoolchildren, but when they brought up the legislative negotiations that were going on at the moment, he admitted that the farming lobby would end up having to make adjustments and pointed out some ways of improvement that would be relatively easy to implement. He objected vehemently to the notion of abolishing the cages altogether, though, as had been proposed by activists. Free range chickens were much too expensive, in his opinion.

Granzien then explained to the class that the farm they were visiting today was at one end of a wide spectrum of methods to raise chickens and that not everyone shared Orenn's perspective on free range fowl.

"On Malayis, for example, all chickens are kept free range due to local legislation," he said.

"Yeah, well, unfortunately, the output of these farms is not high enough to provide even a tenth of Coruscant with eggs," Orenn said with a shrug. "It's nice for those who can afford it."

"Where does the Temple get its eggs from?" one of the girls asked.

Granzien smiled at her. "From Malayis," he said. "No offense meant," he added, turning to Orenn, who merely shrugged again.

At this moment, an employee brought a few trays of sandwiches and jugs of water. Granzien set a jug and a tray aside and commed the pilot, asking him to fetch lunch for himself and Raven.

When the pilot left to fetch their lunch, Raven cracked an eyelid. Despite having meditated on and off for the last couple of hours, the padawan was far from placated. It was hard to block out what she felt from the animals. Also, the longer she thought about it, the more she wondered if, as a Jedi, she should block it out? Wasn't it her duty to maintain the peace, to uphold justice? Surely this was a huge injustice if you took the chickens' perspective into account. Mind made up, the padawan stood from her seat and left the ship. She had a plan.

Pulling her cloak tightly around herself, Raven made for the line of cages in which she felt the greatest sorrow. She could only assume that these were the oldest birds; the chickens who had been here the longest. If there was nothing she could do to change how this farm did things, the very least she could do would be to give these chickens a moment of freedom. Raven reached out with the Force to make sure nobody was around, and then she examined the locking mechanism. Without preamble, she began fidgeting with the end latch, trying to find the best way to unlock them in one hit because each cage was isolated unless linked. This was probably to pull out individual dead birds without freeing the rest. Disgusting. Finally, she managed to work out that each cage was locked with a latch that was connected to the next by a single triangular shaped rod which ran above. If she flicked each latch shut and turned the end of the rod, it would release the cage flaps at the front, hence freeing the birds inside. Raven hesitated, her finger on the latch. She wanted to give them freedom, but at the same time, Eeth had specifically ordered her not to cause trouble. Was this causing trouble, though? Giving some depressed beings freedom even if only for an hour or so? At that moment Raven's sense of justice won out, and she flicked the release, freeing the birds. And they really did take off, feathers flapping and squawking. Wow, she had hoped they would not be quite that noisy. As it was, it wasn't going to take long before they were noticed. With this in mind, Raven left them to their moment of freedom and ran back to the ship before her absence could be noticed.

She had just sat down when the pilot entered. "Here you go," he said cheerfully and tossed her a wrapped sandwich.

"So what am I missing? More drabble on how it's okay to lock up animals in tiny cages for their entire lives?" she asked, peeling open the wrapper.

The pilot held up both hands. "Don't shoot the messenger, kid, I just fly the rig."

Raven smiled. She liked this guy. They chatted while they ate. The commotion Raven had caused was far enough away that it was not heard out here, fortunately.

Granzien and the class were just leaving the garden and heading for the breeding station when suddenly all hell broke loose. There were chickens everywhere, confused and screeching. Farm workers were shouting and trying to round them up, and the owner of the farm, one Mister Mottlapp, was running up to the group, red-faced and swearing.

"It was one of your group!" he roared at Granzien. "We've got her on our security cameras! Blonde girl with a short ponytail! You set her up to it! If this is going to cost us credits, I will be sure to ask the Temple for a refund!"

Granzien could not have looked any more astounded if he had tried. "I assure you I did not set up any of my students to this," he said, again helping his credibility with a very slight Force suggestion. He was not lying, after all. "I have been here several times before without any incidents, haven't I? Are you quite sure about your accusation?"

"I can show you the holos if you don't believe me," Mottlapp bellowed.

Five minutes later, Granzien was gazing at a holo projection, and the look on his face could not have been darker. He returned to his class who were waiting outside and informed them that the field trip would have to end here since the farm could spare no staff to complete the remainder of the scheduled programme. He offered his and his students' help in rounding up the chickens, but Mottlapp refused outright. There was nothing left for Granzien to do than offer his apologies and assure the man that the culprit would be properly dealt with. When that was done, he shepherded the class into the shuttle. Without losing time, he sat down in the co-pilot's seat and used the comlink to open a connection to the Temple.

'Better let her master deal with this', he thought. Despite his considerable annoyance, he felt a stab of pity for Raven when he thought of how Eeth would probably react to this news. He could still remember all too well how his own master had reacted when Granzien had chained himself to that tree…

Raven looked up in surprise when her class returned early; she had given up meditating now and was entertaining herself by trying to land her stylus in a cup that was wedged in an armrest across from her. She wasn't using the Force, of course, because that would have been cheating!

"Some of the chickens got loose," Bindi said in way of explanation, sitting down beside Raven who had now retaken her seat. "And they're blaming you for it."

"What?" But what Raven really wanted to know was HOW! How the Force had they known it was her?!

And apparently, her face said as much because Bindi continued. "They had security cameras," Bindi supplied, feeling even shittier for her friend whose face had drained of what little colour it typically had.

"Security cameras… What sort of freaky farmers are they, anyway?"

"The sort that films their chickens," replied Wez, who had not been able to help but overhear given he was seated directly behind them.

Neither girl had a chance to reply to that before the pilot announced that everyone be seated for take-off. Granzien was still nowhere to be seen which further worried Raven. She expected some sort of retribution on his behalf, but so far, he was absent.

* * *

Eeth was stunned with disbelief. "She did _what_?" he asked incredulously.

"You heard me quite clearly," replied Granzien, feeling a brief surge of some kind of perverse pleasure at this exact replica of the way Eeth had spoken to him over the scorcher incident. However, while he did like returning the favour, he had to admit that this whole incident was too annoying to be worth it.

"I have seen the security holos," he assured Eeth. "Raven actually set free an entire coop of chickens."

"And how could this happen?" Eeth demanded to know. "Did you not supervise the class? Did she sneak off without you noticing? Or what?"

Granzien raised his eyebrows. "I had sent her to the shuttle earlier," he said coolly. "She was supposed to stay there and meditate for having been rude to our guide and disobeyed me when I told her to shut up. It is her lack of self-restraint, not my negligence, that is the issue here, as I am sure you will agree." As always, he refused to allow Eeth to bully him; and as always, that bought him a grudging measure of respect as was evident from the look on Eeth's face.

There was a long pause.

Then Eeth said in a strained voice: "I do. Very well. I will pick her up on the landing pad as soon as you arrive. "

He terminated the connection.

Granzien returned to the passenger cabin and made his way to Raven.

"Your master has been informed of what you did on the farm," he told her, refusing to let even the slightest amount of compassion creep into his voice. "He will pick you up from the landing pad."

Raven didn't know what to say to that! So she said the first thing that came to mind. "He, he will? Oh." Raven thought that strange. Typically, padawans made their way back to their quarters unchaperoned. That Eeth was collecting her from the platform did not bode well for her.

Bindi agreed, as did most of Raven's class. Most of them could sympathise with why she had done it, but none could really understand as Raven did; none of them possessed Raven's gift, after all.

"Landing in five," the pilot announced some time later, bringing an end to what had been the LOOON-GEST flight of Raven's life. Not that she was keen to leave the shuttle. Raven could see that Eeth was indeed waiting for her just inside the landing platform. "He's going to kill me," she said, shrinking back into her seat.

Bindi had to agree. It didn't look good, but she tried to offer some comfort in any case. "You can't hide in here; he'll find you. At least try boarding another shuttle if evasion is your plan."

This made Raven snort; she was going to die, most likely from humiliation.

When the class filed out of the shuttle, with Raven straggling unenthusiastically at the end of the line, right before Granzien, Eeth stepped towards her. The look he gave her could have frozen over the entire planet of Mustafar.

Indeed, Raven froze, and Granzien barely managed to sidestep her as Eeth stepped up and grabbed her padawan braid.

"Master, wait, waiitttowww!" But it was too late.

Wordlessly, Eeth turned, hauling her behind himself towards the turbolifts. He barely took the time to give Granzien a cursory nod. There was nothing much left to discuss, in his opinion; and Granzien seemed to agree.

Raven did her best to walk with some sense of dignity but really, what was dignified about being dragged from a landing platform by the braid? Nothing! It was horrifying, and all she could manage was some sort of sideways shuffle as they left the platform. It didn't stop there, either. Eeth kept hold of her braid as they entered the hallway that led to the lifts, and he didn't let go even when the door to their lift closed, despite much protesting from Raven! "Massstteerrrr!" she whined when the lift opened and people started staring at them.

Eeth just gave her a glare and made a point of not letting go in the slightest. He kept his hold on her braid all the way to their quarters, during which he kept up his stony silence. He was, in fact, working hard on not being angry. There was no room for anger in a Jedi's life. Eeth took that prohibition seriously because he knew how dangerous he could become if he allowed himself to give in to his anger. He was, however, extremely displeased with his padawan's behaviour and equally determined to make that displeasure clear to her.

When they arrived at their quarters, Eeth finally let go of Raven's braid. He doubted that she would have time to be grateful for the reprieve, though, because without losing a beat, he ordered: "Bring me the cane, padawan. Then bare your bottom and bend over a chair." His tone of voice made clear that he was going to brook no objection.

Raven was busy rubbing her head. Eeth hadn't been cruel, but nor had being led back to their quarters by her padawans braid been comfortable! For the second time that day, Raven's insides froze, the discomfort from her braid forgotten with that order. He was going to cane her. Not again! Raven turned ashen, which was truly a feat given that the girl was already china white. She looked from Eeth to the cupboard, to their dining room chairs and then back to Eeth trying to gauge if protesting this was worth it. "Aren't you even going to let me explain?" she tried, her voice, much to her horror, coming out as little more than a squeak.

"Obedience is not negotiable," snapped Eeth. "I told you to obey Granzien and not to cause any trouble and you disobeyed. Granzien told you to be silent and sent you back to the shuttle to meditate, and you disobeyed. I promised you a caning if there was any further disobedience during field trips and I do not break my promises. Now do as I told you, or I will assume that you need an even more thorough lesson than I am intending to teach you right now."

Besides, Eeth thought he knew perfectly well why Raven had set the chickens free. And he was going to talk to her about it later. But not now. Right now, he was only interested in being obeyed.

Raven could sense as much, so despite wanting to do nothing else than argue and stall, she went to the cupboard. The cane was where it had been last time, leaning up against the left hand side of the wall next to the other one. Raven took the thing and shuddered; it had been the worst pain she had ever felt and copping it again was about as far from what she wanted right now as you could possibly get. It was unsurprising that Raven took her time about this. She dragged her feet back to where Eeth was waiting, taking as long as humanly possible, before handing the horrid thing over. "Here then." It was still beyond her why he made her fetch the damn thing but now was probably not the smartest time to ask questions like that.

Eeth accepted the cane and pointed to a chair, his face stern. "Get on with it," he ordered. "I want you in position in twenty seconds."

"Aww!" Raven whined, arms crossed tightly about her chest. She went to the dining area, though, and pulled out the same chair as last time. Her hands were shaking a bit as her saber belt was tossed onto the table, and she started sniffling. "I'm sorry! Please don't use that thing on me. It hurts too much!" she whined while pulling down her trousers and underwear.

"Bend over," Eeth said, unmoved. "I told you specifically this morning to obey Granzien and make sure not to cause any trouble. If you think you can ignore my instructions without consequences, think again. Obviously, the punishment you received after your first field trip did not leave enough of an impression on you. I plan to rectify that"

Again Raven whined, only this time she bounced around for effect. Still, she wasn't suicidal (although bending over that chair sure felt suicidal to her) so she turned to face the backrest and put her elbows on the seat as he had told her to do last time. Before he could start, she twisted to face him. "How many times?" Because if she knew when it was going to end it might be bearable. Yeah, right...

"A dozen," Eeth said coolly. He did not normally volunteer such information but right now he thought it would bring across the exact extent of his displeasure; after all, it was twice as much as he had given her over the incident with Rayan. And when he lifted the cane and brought it down across the center of Raven's bottom, he used noticeably less restraint than he had the last time – although he certainly still made sure there would be no undue damage.

"Twelve! B-but–" That was double what he gave her the last time! Raven didn't say as much, though, she just clung on to the backrest of the chair for grim death. When he landed that first whack, it was all she could do not to spring up and run out the door! It had taken her breath away. However, when he landed the next couple she her hands flew back of their own volition and she found her voice. "Owwwww!" she wailed, while rubbing frantically at the line of fire that felt like it cut right through her. She could not imagine being able to stand up for another eight like those! Had he meant to make it hurt that much?

Eeth most definitely had. He now used a touch of the Force to restrain Raven. In theory, she would be able to break through that with an effort but it would most likely be enough to help her stay in position. He also dealt out the remainder of the caning relatively fast. He doubted that she would recognise this as the small mercy it was; it was going to make it slightly easier for her to get through this caning without breaking position although the resulting pain would be just as bad. Eeth had received canings himself and he knew how much they hurt. Which was the point, of course.

Raven recognised no mercy in this! It was the worst pain she'd ever felt, and it did not take many more before the padawan was screeching and wailing like someone were murdering her. Eeth was murdering her, she was sure of it. It took until the ninth before the pain got too much and she started struggling to stand up. She couldn't, though, not without exacting some concentration which was impossible when Eeth was smacking her with that damned cane. The last two elicited screeches from Raven of a pitch that she did not think existed in the natural world, and then she cried even louder. By now her sleeve was a mess of snot and tears, and their chair had not escaped either.

Eeth could not have cared less about the chair; like all equipment in Jedi quarters, it was simple, practical and could be easily cleaned. He released his Force hold on Raven and brought the cane back to its place in the cupboard. Then he handed Raven a handkerchief. He was always carrying a few.

It took Raven a few minutes to calm herself to a stage where she was crying mostly with her mouth shut, occasionally making the odd whimpering noise through her nose. The handkerchief was accepted but not used for the moment. "Can I go to m-my roohoom," she sobbed out while turning to face Eeth. Her trousers were not going anywhere near her ass, but her tunic was long enough to provide modesty, not that Raven cared about that; Eeth had seen her ass before, after all.

"No," Eeth said flatly. "I have a great deal to tell you, and you are going to listen."

He folded his arms across his chest and looked at her calmly and steadily.

"Now," he said, "this punishment may have seemed very harsh to you, considering that you were undoubtedly convinced of doing the right thing at the time. And I have to tell you right now, it is not over yet. But we will get to that later. Right now, I want to explain to you why I think such a harsh punishment was called for, as I am not certain you understand it fully. The essence of it is that you are a Jedi padawan, and you are expected to act like one. Not like a child who goes along with whatever idea happens to pop into her head. Not like an emotional teenager who has not got enough self-control to refrain from provoking people and airing her opinions in inappropriate ways. Not like a spoilt brat who ignores her superiors' instructions whenever they are inconvenient to her. Your duty as a Jedi padawan is to obey your master and teachers, to exercise self-control, and to think before you act. You have to remember that you represent the Jedi Temple to outsiders. Today, you did a very poor job of it. The farm might not allow the Jedi on further field trips, they might send us a huge bill, and they will quite definitely not change their stance on animal rights because of your actions. You might have found yourself incapable of thinking of all this before you acted like you did, but at the very least you should have obeyed your teacher. This is the same kind of impulsive action that got you in trouble the last time."

Raven just looked at him, and then, despite the considerable pain he had just caused her, her temper kicked in. "Now you wait just a minute!" She squared off against him. "Standing up for the rights of other beings is not an idea that 'j-just popped into my head!' It's how I feel. I'm not spoiled, how can I be with you as a master! All you care about is the rules, nothing else." Eeth's words had hurt, but it wasn't just that. Her insecurities over not being good enough and over the last punishment she had received where she felt he didn't care were surfacing. "I wasn't trying to provoke anyone, either." Raven's expression was hard, although it was difficult to maintain the icy, death-inducing glare while both hands still worked to soothe her backside. It was at the stage now where the initial burn had sunk into a deep ache and her entire backside felt like it had it's very own heartbeat.

"Nevertheless, you did," Eeth said coolly. His attempt to explain had obviously not gone over well. If he had learned one thing from his experience with Lakhri, it was that reprimands and punishments were not good ways of dealing with belligerence caused by righteous indignation. Better let the padawan in question cool off before continuing the discussion.

"Go to your room," he said neutrally. "Calm down. Meditate for at least half an hour as soon as you feel able to. We will talk more about this, and about the rest of your punishment, when you are done."

"Go to my room? Calm down and meditate!" This was like waving a red flag at a bull for Raven right now. "That's all you care about," she shouted. Apparently, her sense of self-preservation had flown the coop with her rescued chickens! That realisation hit her about that moment. Shouting at Eeth was not something she had ever done before, nor had she ever dared disobey him after being punished for exactly that. Raven turned on her heel and ran for her bedroom, slamming the door plate behind her. She jumped on to her bed and pulled the covers around herself; what purpose that served, exactly, the padawan did not know.

Eeth heaved a sigh. The dramatics of prepubescent padawans! He rather thought he should give Raven some time to come to her senses. If he did not sense her making an attempt at meditation within the next half hour or so, he could still intervene. For the time being, he called Granzien. He seemed to be doing that rather a lot these days. After he had heard some more details from the man, he asked: "Will you be in your quarters after dinner? I would like to send Raven to apologise."

"I'll be there," said Granzien. "You don't have to, though."

"Yes, I have to," said Eeth severely. "She disrupted your field trip. Of course she will apologise. Will you allow her to come to the Akahiret cliffs?"

Granzien had tried not to think about that but it seemed as if he had to. He hated excluding students from field trips. They were always so disappointed! He preferred to tell them off and be done with it. He had to concede, though, that Raven had disobeyed him twice now, with quite spectacular consequences. There needed to be some repercussions.

"Probably not," he said reluctantly. "I will talk to her about it when she comes tonight."

"Good," said Eeth and terminated the call.

When Eeth did not come through the door after her, Raven began to relax. She could hear he was making a comm call. For some reason, the fact that he had gone on with his business as usual without giving her outburst a second thought further injured her already thin sense of security regarding her role as his apprentice. Despite her orders, the padawan spent a good ten minutes beating up on her pillow before deciding that she had pushed it far enough and starting to meditate as instructed. It wasn't easy. She ended up swapping out her tunic for a sleep shirt and lay on her tummy but found herself drifting off to sleep. The last thing she wanted was to give Eeth further ammunition over what a crappy excuse for a padawan she was, so, very reluctantly, Raven knelt on her pillow and let her head thunk into the wall above her bedhead. It wasn't as bad as kneeling on the floor, but nor did it hurt as much as sitting would have.

Eeth prepared some dinner in the meanwhile. For some reason, he ended up making vegetable stir-fry which he knew Raven loved. Well, she was bound to be hungry, and no matter how displeased he was, he would never let his padawan go hungry!

When he sensed that she had meditated for a good while, he knocked on her door. "Padawan, please come out into the common room!" he called.

Raven let herself flop back onto her bed, and then quickly rolled on to her side; her backside still throbbed. She was still mad at Eeth, but the feeling was not nearly as intense now as it had been earlier. Very carefully, she pulled on some underpants (this slight discomfort was nothing compared to what had caused it, after all) and hit the door plate. At first, Raven just stuck her head out. Why? Who knew. When she saw Eeth standing in their common room waiting for her, though, she pretended like the hesitation hadn't happened. Wordlessly, she took the few steps that brought her to stand before Eeth.

"Bare your bottom and lie on the couch," Eeth instructed, his face impassive as usual. "I will provide some healing. And while I do, I will tell you about the rest of your punishment."

Given that Raven wanted that healing more than the consequences of voicing her horror over hearing the words 'rest of your punishment' leave Eeth's mouth, she slid her underpants down and lie onto the couch. She was still a little mad, or was it hurt? It was hard to say, and so she said nothing.

"Padawan," Eeth said, far more gently than he had spoken to her before. He could sense the resentment in her and hoped he would find some way to get through to her. "I know you feel hard done-by," he continued. "But please try to focus on what you did, rather than your motives. I told you specifically not to cause any trouble and to obey master Granzien in all things. And yet you completely ignored your teacher's request for politeness and disobeyed his instruction to be still. And then, instead of accepting the punishment Master Granzien gave you for this, you left the ship without permission and caused even more trouble, resulting in the class trip being cancelled as well as significant loss of reputation and credits for the Temple. All that, and I am doubtful whether there was any benefit for the chickens you tried to free. I will not be able to take you on missions until I am convinced that you have more self-control and respect for your duties as a Jedi padawan than you displayed today. This is not simply a matter of misbehaving and being punished for it. I expect you to learn from this punishment, or you will make life very difficult for yourself indeed."

While he spoke, he had unscrewed a small jar of bacta and started spreading it across the welts on her bottom, letting a generous amount of healing energy flow into Raven's skin. A generous amount was needed here because he had not punished her lightly.

"Now, as for the rest of your punishment," he continued, his voice taking on a sterner edge. "After dinner, you will go to Master Granzien and apologise to him in person. I left it to him to decide whether he will take you on the final field trip. Whatever his verdict on that is, you will accept it as a consequence of your own actions. Starting tomorrow morning, you will be grounded for two weeks. For the first week of those, you will perform one hour of meditation on obedience every night after dinner. Before you start that meditation, you will be spanked so you do not forget why you are doing this. You will spend your free time writing a letter of apology to the farm owner and composing a ten-page essay on appropriate and inappropriate ways to advocate animal rights, based on research I expect you to do in the library's database. None of this is negotiable, so I suggest you cut down on any indignant responses you might feel compelled to give."

His suggestion was heeded, at least initially. However, that was only because shock had set in and Raven couldn't think of anything to say to all of that. Okay, so the apology to Granzien she had fully expected, although that it had to be given in person tonight was not. Even the grounding, letter of apology to the farm owner, and the ten pages of rubbing salt into the wound, she could imagine happening. Sure, she had hoped it wouldn't, but it was far from unexpected. What had her choking was the rest of that. Spanking every night for a week! The padawan paled. After the moment of silence stretched out into a full minute, Raven finally found her voice. "Master, you can't be serious. Not every night, I'll never sit down again!" she whined, her head buried in the crook of her elbow. There was no way she was going to start crying again! No way.

"You will," Eeth replied matter-of-factly. "None of these spankings will render you unable to sit – unless you give me any cause for complaint during the day, that is."

Raven twisted at the waist to look at him. As always, he wore the same impassive mask which made him impossible to read, and so she huffed and turned back to face the couch. She was unhappy about all of this, but that much was to be expected if you asked her.

Eeth finished his treatment of her bottom in silence. He was not exactly surprised that Raven seemed put out by this punishment but something made him uneasy about her behaviour. He could not put his finger on it, though, nor did he have any idea what to say that had not already been said.

"Alright," he finally said. "Pull your pants back up. We will have dinner now. After that, you will go and see Master Granzien."

He rose, washed his hands and fetched the stir-fry from the kitchen.

Raven stood, pulled up her underpants and, as Eeth went into the kitchen, she twisted to inspect the state of her backside. She could still feel it alright. In her experience, Eeth never took away all of the pain from a punishment. There were still quite a few welts poking out from her underpants but she remembered from last time that after bacta was applied, this only lasted for a couple more hours.

Raven was still not happy with Eeth. She didn't resent him for punishing her but she was wallowing in her own self-deprecating pity. It was often hard for her to let go of things. Raven wasn't her usual chatty self over dinner, and Eeth likewise remained silent so that made for a rather stoic meal. She ate it, though, silently appreciating that he had made her favourite, even if she did not say as much.

When they had cleared the table and washed the dishes, Eeth said: "Go and see Master Granzien now. His quarters are in corridor B, level 320, in the East Wing. Will you be able to find them?"

"Eventually," Raven replied. She was not in any rush to get this over with, after all. However, the last thing she wanted was to be escorted there like a creche youngling. After changing into a clean uniform, the padawan washed her face and tried to make it look like she had not spent the last hour crying. It was not easy. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and there was little she could do about that. When she exited her bedroom fifteen minutes later, Raven was looking as respectable as was possible under the circumstances. Eeth had never grounded her before, and she wasn't entirely sure what he expected. Pausing by the door, her hand hovering above the sensor, she asked: "I guess stopping in at the padawans' lounge is not on the cards?" It was more statement than question, but as always, you really did have to be in it to win it.

"For your sake, I will consider this a rhetorical question," Eeth replied coolly. "Come right back here after you have finished talking to Master Granzien."

Raven had expected as much. She huffed, palmed the door plate and left without comment. Could this day get any worse? Well, she was about to find out...


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Happy holidays! Merry christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Whatever it is that you're all celebrating this year, we hope that it is truly wonderful. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, IMed and enjoyed reading so far. Eeth and Raven are building up to mission clearance which will, much to Raven's great relief, see them leaving Temple life behind for a while and embarking on new and exciting missions. We hope you all enjoy the story so far. If you have any comments, please review. We love to hear from you all.

Best for the holidays and new year.

-Livia&Raven

* * *

As anticipated, it took Raven a bit of time to locate Granzien's quarters. The Temple was a huge, multi-story complex that was hard enough to negotiate with a map, let alone working off verbal directions. Still, Raven knew enough of this part of the Temple now to make the task possible. She stood outside his door for several minutes, thinking about the mess she had caused by setting those chickens loose, and really, really not wanting to be dragged over the coals again by Granzien for it. It wasn't that she felt Granzien undeserving of an apology, but more the fact that she did not feel like being scolded or further punished over her decisions. Eeth had more than covered that, in her opinion. Well, it wasn't like Eeth had given her a choice, and so she took a deep breath and hit the door panel to announce her presence. There was no point standing at his door all night. That said, it was preferable to sitting in her quarters writing apologies and essays, which was what she would be doing for the two weeks of her grounding.

Granzien opened the door, unsurprised to find Raven standing there. "Padawan Raven," he said. "Come in."

After his padawan had been knighted two years ago, he had opted for moving into single-bedroom quarters that had their own small garden. His common room was cluttered with gardening utensils and potted plants. He motioned for Raven to sit at the small dining table which was littered with data pads, a couple of energy bar wrappers and two empty teapots.

"Sorry, I didn't have time to tidy up," he said. "My afternoon was spent making comm calls in an attempt to gloss this whole incident over. I wasn't quite successful, I'm afraid. The farm owner was fairly upset. I think he'll approach the Council for a refund – well, unless he's the type to calm down overnight. I guess we'll know tomorrow."

The contrast between the orderly way in which Eeth kept their quarters, and the mess Granzien was in stuck out like bantha balls to Raven. Well, apparently, this mess was her fault, too. She eyed the offered chair dubiously, opting to remain standing; unless he specifically ordered her to sit, she would not. "Umm." Ugh. That was a horrible way to start an apology! Raven had given enough of them in her time to know how this ought to go, but she was struggling. "Master Granzien. I'm sorry that I caused problems for you, for the Temple." She stopped short of saying that she didn't mean it because she had really wanted to free those chickens! What Raven regretted now was the way in which she had gone about it. "I'm sorry I disobeyed you." The apology was sincere, and she had managed to hold his gaze despite wanting to look away.

"Apology accepted," said Granzien, gazing down on her. Her red-rimmed, puffy eyes had not escaped him. No doubt Eeth had done his reputation justice. Granzien felt tempted, very tempted, to take pity on Raven and just send her home. But he knew that more was needed in order to make sure she learned from this; and it was imperative that she did.

"Listen," he said. "I can relate to why you did what you did. It was an understandable impulse. A commendable one, even. You have a special bond with animals and that is a precious thing. But you need to learn to control it, else it will control you. And you see what problems that can create. Acting on your emotions without thinking is what got you in trouble on Mount Akemi, and it got you in trouble again on the chicken farm. It caused you to disobey your superiors and to dismiss their instructions. I have no doubt that your master… dealt with all this accordingly. But I still feel responsible for making sure it doesn't again while I'm in charge. Therefore, you will not take part in the final field trip next weekend. I will send you an assignment that you can work on instead, while the class visits the Akahiret cliffs. Understood?"

He said it quite gently. Pronouncing this punishment really tore at his heart. He liked Raven and he did not want to cause her distress. He never liked doing such things. Some masters – including Eeth, he supposed – considered him way too soft. But that was not quite fair because when it was really necessary, he could be relied on to put his foot down despite his misgivings, as he was doing now.

That Granzien seemed to think her actions were understandable gave Raven a little hope that maybe things weren't as bad as they seemed. However, the feeling didn't last long. The news that she was not allowed on their field trip, although not entirely unexpected (Eeth had grounded her, after all), was not easy to hear. She really loved this class, loved the excursions they went on, and the final excursion to the Akahiret cliffs was something that she had looked forward to since Granzien had announced it. Her face fell, tears welled in her eyes, but despite this, she didn't cry. It was, however, evident on her face just how crushed she was over his pronouncement. After a long pause the padawan managed to utter a strangled: "Understood," and swiped a hand across her face. Today had not been easy on her, and this was just the icing on the cake.

It was hard on Granzien to see her disappointment. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. "Learn from this," he said softly. "Your heart is in the right place. It is your methods that need work. Until you have seen and understood more about the world, you need to follow your master's and your teachers' lead. I know it's not an easy lesson to learn. Force knows I was struggling with it for many years. It's probably hard for you to see right now, but I'm trying to help you. And so is your master, I'm sure."

Raven understood this, just as she had when Eeth explained to her what she had done wrong. That didn't mean that she liked it, and Raven decidedly did not like this punishment. She looked up at Granzien, her eyes over-bright. "I wish you would both find other ways to help me, then. I already have punishment coming out my ears from what I did. I'm grounded until I'm twenty, I have to write a novel length essay, letters to the farm…" Raven paused there, a hand reaching back to rub her backside. She was reluctant to tell Granzien, whom she kinda had a crush on, that Eeth had caned her although in hindsight she rather thought that her reluctance to sit was all-telling. Instead, she settled on: "Eeth walloped the bejesus outta me, and it's not ending there. Please, can't you reconsider? I've been looking forward to this one for weeks. Pleeeease."

Granzien was soft-hearted but he was no fool. To go back on a punishment he had pronounced, not because his knowledge of the facts had changed but simply because the child was pleading, was out of the question. Besides, the thought of Eeth's scathing look, should he ever find out, fleetingly crossed his mind. While Granzien was not normally intimidated by Eeth, in this case, he rather thought the scathing look would be entirely justified.

"No, I cannot reconsider," he said gently. "It sounds as if you're receiving quite some punishment. But then, you made the same mistake a second time, and masters rarely take kindly to that. And it wasn't such a small mistake." He gave her a minuscule smile.

"You know," he said, "when I chained myself to a tree as a youth, I disrupted an entire mission and my master threw me to the Council for it. It felt as if it was the end of the world at the time and as if my punishment would never end. Of course that wasn't true. And it really taught me to think before blindly acting on my emotions. I know you hate missing out on the field trip but if this teaches you to pull yourself together the next time a teacher takes you out of the Temple, then a lot will be gained."

He gave her another small smile and said: "Now you had better go home. I assume your master is waiting for you."

Raven sighed, but did not continue to protest; she knew when she was beat, and this was one of those times. Feeling like Granzien had hit the nail on the head, and this really was never going to end, the padawan offered a slight bow and did as told.

There was nothing to rush home for, so she dawdled down the corridors and took the long way through the Temple's central atrium. Raven also used that time to think about what Eeth and Granzien had said. They were right, but admitting that you had gotten things so wrong was never easy. Her morals and heart had been right, understandable even, but how she chose to act on them had turned out to be wrong. Raven had to wonder: If she had her time over, would she do the same thing again? Had it been worth it to give the chickens that moment of freedom? Probably not as it did nothing at all for the cause; it just caused trouble. These were the questions that were mulling around in her mind when she palmed the door to their quarters that evening.

Eeth looked up from where he was scanning a report for mistakes. Raven's unexpectedly early return from the field trip had somewhat disrupted his work and he had used her trip to Master Granzien to catch up. Now that she had entered, though, his attention was on her. He had spent some time thinking on how to proceed from here.

"Padawan," he said, rising from his seat. "Time for evening meditation. The motto for tonight's meditation will be 'There is no passion, there is serenity.' I am sure you have heard it a million times, but have you reflected upon its meaning?"

"It's part of the Jedi Code. I've thought of it, but never to the point of having revelations," she replied honestly, kneeling on her mat. "I guess I'm about to, though, right?"

"Yes, you are about to," Eeth replied, kneeling down opposite her. "At least I hope so. It is part of what being a Jedi is about. No passion – serenity. It is an ability that can be hard to acquire."

"I know." Raven sighed for what felt like the hundredth time today. After a moment or so, she closed her eyes and began to concentrate on the words. No passion – serenity. Any dingbat could understand the words, but putting it into practice was decidedly harder.

Eeth knew that it was. Even for him, it had been hard – possibly even harder because he had not wanted to acknowledge that he was capable of any such thing as "passion". Fortunately for him, he had had a master who was both shrewd and determined. She had seen right through him!

After a meditation that was rather longer than usual, he roused Raven from her trance and asked: "Any new insights into what the Jedi Code asks from you?"

Raven opened her eyes and yawned; that had been hard on her. "I shouldn't be affected by things I don't agree with, and remain calm regardless of how strongly I feel about something. Passion is a powerful emotion, like hate and anger, both of which are a path to the Dark Side, and none of which are acceptable emotions for a Jedi." Raven was exhausted. Her mind was ragged and she hoped Eeth would accept her answer and just let her go to bed.

Eeth nodded. "Thank you, padawan. This will do for now. You will spend more time reflecting on it in the upcoming weeks. I know this is a hard lesson to learn, and I do not expect you to be perfect at it all of a sudden. But it is the ideal you should strive after and that you will be measured by."

Giving her shoulder an affectionate squeeze, he said: "Off to bed with you before you fall asleep on your meditation mat."

"Yes, master." Raven stood, yawned, stretched and went to her bedroom to change into some sleep clothes. She was halfway through doing this when she spotted the small step that Eeth had provided so that she could reach everything in their quarters. Apparently, he did not like it when she climbed up on the benchtops in order to reach the higher cupboard spaces and the like around their quarters. She was curious about the state of her ass. Yes, yes, it had been several hours now, but the pain at the time had been such that the padawan was confident there would be gashes to the bone at the very least! Carefully, she stood on the thing and tried twisting her bum around while craning her neck to get a good look in the mirror. So absolute was her concentration that when her uneven weight caused the step to slide out from under her, she did not have time to save herself from falling, and only just managed to cushion her fall using the Force. Yep, it was a very undignified crash. There was nothing at all graceful about it. Not only did she wind up in a pile on the floor, but she had taken out her hair dryer on the way down, which in turn wrapped its cord around her toothbrush holder and brought the lot down on top of her.

Eeth was in Raven's refresher in what seemed like less than a second.

"Are you hurt?" he asked quickly, trying to untangle the mess that covered his padawan and wondering why her bare bottom was sticking up.

Raven would like to have replied with: 'only my pride', but the truth was, her wrist hurt, and she told him as much. "I just landed on it," she said. It wasn't excruciating like when she had broken her arm, not even close. But then there was the hope that if she played this up a bit, it might get her out of spending hours writing letters and doing essays! It was worth a try.

Eeth scanned her wrist quickly through the Force and nodded. "Nothing too serious," he said. "Most likely a sprain. I will bandage it and perform some healing on it. It should be fine by tomorrow morning. If it is not, we will let a healer have a look at it. They should be able to fix it in no time."

Ten minutes later, Raven was in bed with a bandage around her wrist, and Eeth asked: "Just out of curiosity – how in the Force's name did you manage to fall in such a spectacular way?"

"Trying to look at my ass," Raven replied as if that were the only logical answer and Eeth was silly for having to ask. The thought prompted a question. "Are you seriously going to spank me every night for a week?"

"Yes," said Eeth.

"Isn't there some sort of regulation about how much corporal punishment a master can dish out to his padawan?"

"No," said Eeth.

"Well, there ought to be."

This, Eeth did not dignify with a reply.

Raven huffed at his lack of comment, so she added: "I might start a petition." She rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. Eeth tucked the blanket around her and left, switching off the light.

Raven woke up a few times through the night. Her wrist had begun aching, and it did not seem to matter where she put it, it just wouldn't quit. She knew it wasn't a severe injury; it was more one of those annoying injuries that caused irritating spats of throbbing pain often enough to become bothersome. Eventually, the padawan got sick of it and went into Eeth's bedroom. It was totally dark in here, and given that Eeth wasn't much lighter himself, he blended in well. She used the Force to find his bed and sat down. "Masssterr, are you awake?" she whispered through cupped hands. It had occurred to her to just go to his bathroom, start rooting around for his medical kit and serve herself to painkillers, but she doubted that would go over well.

"I am now, padawan," Eeth said quietly, righting himself up in his bed and shaking back his hair. For as long as he could remember, he had had the ability to wake up from sleep at the slightest disturbance and be fully functional in a fraction of a second. Maybe it was a survival skill he had needed to acquire as a toddler, in an episode of his life that he did not care to think about. In any case, it came in useful.

"What is it?" he asked in concern. "Are you ill?"

"No. My wrist hurts. I was going to get something from your medical kit and fix it myself, but I thought you might want me to tell you about it before I did that." Raven was pretty autonomous, and she knew a bit about medicine thanks to her interest in anatomy. Still, she had woken Eeth. Maybe because (without being conscious of it) she secretly wanted some of his attention; he had been hard on her the day before, after all.

Eeth was very protective of those he was in charge of and Raven was no exception. On the contrary – his protectiveness, or maybe just his willingness to display it, had increased significantly over the years and Raven got to experience much more of it than Lakhri had, at that stage of his padawanhood.

"My medical kit is off-limits to you," he said, sitting up fully and taking Raven's hand gently into his own to examine it. "If there is any medication you should take, I will be the one to hand it out."

Raven's wrist was swollen and hot to the touch. Obviously, Eeth's attempt at healing had been insufficient.

"Pull on your boots," he told Raven. "I'm taking you to the healers."

"Can't you just try some Force-aided healing again?" said the healer-allergic apprentice, a touch of desperation to her tone. This was nothing a hypo wouldn't fix and she was sure Eeth would have one of those lying around in his medical kit. Surely!

"Well, obviously I didn't do a very good job at healing it yesterday," Eeth said drily. "The healers will probably be able to fix this in less than two minutes, and that is what we will ask them to do. It will take us a quarter of an hour at most and we might even get some more sleep when we are done. Now stop arguing and pull on your boots."

Raven let out a put-upon sigh but got to her feet and went to find her boots regardless. She found the healing arts absolutely fascinating, as long as she wasn't on the receiving end! Then it became a whole other ball game. Still muttering about overreacting masters, the padawan sat on the floor by their door and pulled on her boots. Her sleep shirt was long enough to provide modesty and so when Eeth met her at the door, she stood, ready to go.

Eeth rested a protective hand on his padawan's shoulder, which drew a smile from the girl, and guided her to the turbolifts. Much as he was prone to telling her to pull herself together where studying, unpleasant chores or boring tasks were concerned, he took her health seriously and would never ignore her when she was in pain – well, unless that pain was the result of a well-deserved punishment, maybe.

"There is always at least one healer on duty," he said. "I assume it is a strain, possibly alongside some damage to the ligament. The healers are much better at treating such things than I am. It will be alright by morning. – Well," he corrected himself, glancing out of the window. "Technically, it is already morning. Later this morning, then."

"Technically," Raven repeated, refraining, if only just, from rolling her eyes at the semantics. Despite being brave, and Raven would tell you that she was, she was glad to have Eeth by her side for this. He was right, though, it had just gone four in the morning but there was a healer on duty when they arrived. "I hate that sterile smell, it always gives me the creeps," Raven complained to Eeth, quietly enough so that the approaching healer wouldn't hear.

"It also prevents you from getting an infection," remarked Eeth. "Now let the healer check you out and you will be out of here in no time." Sure enough, the healer examined the wrist briefly, pressed a hypospray analgesic into the base of Raven's hand, wrapped the wrist in a flexible bandage and applied some healing energy to it. Less than ten minutes later, they were on their way back home with instructions to come back if the pain was not completely gone by that evening – "which is very unlikely," the young healer had said.

"I still don't like the smell," Raven remarked, walking beside Eeth. She was grateful that he had forced her to go now, because the pain was all but gone. She flexed and rolled her hand a few times, testing out the bandage. She was also glad for the lack of questions on their healers part. For instance: 'How did you do this?' did not pop up!

It was four-thirty in the morning by the time they got home. Again, Raven sat by the door, pulled off her boots and yawned. "Can I go back to bed, please?"

"Padawan, you act as if staying up was even an option," Eeth said wryly. "Of course you will go back to bed. Right this instant."

"Well, I wouldn't put it past you," Raven said, shooting him a cheeky look. Here was a man who got up at the ass crack of dawn every day, after all!

"I want you well-rested for school," Eeth pointed out. "If you promise to get ready for the day quickly, I can wake you up for school at seven for once. Will you be able to go back to sleep or would you like me to help?"

"Can you help? Please!" Raven would never knock back an offer to help her sleep. She was the sort to lie awake for hours, unable to switch off her mind. It was this struggle that made meditation such an issue for her, but lately this had been less of a problem. Her days were so full now that by the time sleep came around, the padawan was honestly exhausted and happy for it. Also, with Eeth's help, she was learning to still her mind.

Thus, Eeth tucked Raven in and sent a light sleep compulsion her way. It would fade soon and would not impede her from waking up when he came to see her at seven… he hoped. Then he went back to bed himself to get one more hour of sleep or so.

Those two and a half hours sleep were utter bliss for Raven, and the seven a.m. wake-up was even better.

Classes that day were business as usual. Most of their time was spent revising the work they had covered that cycle in preparation for the end-of-term exams. On the plus side, there was no homework issued. Instead, each student was instructed to continue with their revision for this week's exams.

There were a group of students from her last class going to the dining hall for lunch, and then they were planning to meet in the lounge that evening to do some extra 'study'. "Come with?" a Nautolan girl asked Raven, eliciting a groan.

"I can't. I'm grounded," Raven replied, looking decidedly unhappy at missing out on the fun. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at this, none of the kids from her zoology class had been in any of Raven's classes today. Thus, they were all none the wiser to what had happened yesterday.

"Oh. That sucks. For how long?"

"Two weeks."

"TWO WEEKS! What did you do to catch that? Assassinate the Chancellor?" Jedi padawans did not have a lot of free time as it was, so getting grounded was almost as bad as physical punishment. Almost!

Raven shot her Nautolan peer a pained expression. Why did everyone always want the gory details?! "No, he's still alive. I freed a bunch of chickens." Apparently, this was such an unexpected answer that a small group had formed, urging her to elaborate. By the time she was done, the room was silent. Nobody knew quite what to say to that.

Finally, a Kel Dor broke the silence. "I wonder if they managed to catch the chickens? Some might have gotten free."

"Yeah, some might have been lucky," added another.

Raven just sighed. "I hope so. It doesn't sound likely, though. They had the entire staff out looking for them." This conversation went on for another few minutes before Raven decided that she ought to go. Eeth had said zo come directly home and if she took too long, he might just get prickly. The irony of being held captive herself for freeing others had not escaped her, and it was what was on her mind when she palmed the door to their quarters that afternoon looking deflated. Another thirteen days of this to go and she was already bored of it.

"Padawan," said Eeth, inclining his head at Raven. He was just carrying a casserole made of tubers and a creamy sauce to the table. Having been free of Council duty today, he had made use of his time by preparing a proper meal.

"Wash your hands and come eat," he said. "You came later than I expected."

Raven bowed in greeting, but said nothing about his comment. Did he know? Surely he couldn't; it was only a few minutes. Well, if he didn't push for details, Raven sure as shit wasn't going to volunteer them. The padawan was quick to obey, darting into her bedroom and throwing her pack onto the desk that was built into the corner of her room. A moment later she emerged, hands washed and following her nose. Whatever it was smelled good.

"When you are grounded, I expect you to come home without dawdling," Eeth informed her as he sat down and started serving the casserole. "I will let it slide this time. But not if it happens again." There. She had received a fair warning. It was a lesson he had learned when forced to supervise creche children at age sixteen, and he still tried to mind it.

"Yes, master," came the sheepish reply. It had literally been a few minutes and she had, in a way, been testing him. Raven was still figuring out how far the boundaries extended with Eeth in general; being grounded was an entirely new set of boundaries to explore.

After they had eaten and cleared the dishes away, Eeth said: "Get started on your letter now, please. After that, we can have a quick workout. And then you need to study for your exams."

The first of those were tomorrow and in Eeth's opinion, Raven's prowess at arithmetics could still be significantly improved.

Although Raven would not disagree with Eeth's assessment of her maths skill, she was unhappy about having to spend hours studying it. She was, however, decidedly unhappier about having to write an apology to the farm. In her opinion they didn't deserve an apology; it was her master and teacher who deserved it and she had given both. Huffing, the padawan went to her bedroom and collected her datapad, and then she fell onto their couch and started working. This was going to take some time.

One hour passed.

"Can I get some juice, pleeeease?" Raven whined.

"Are you done writing your letter?" Eeth asked, looking up from his work.

"No, master."

"Then stop trying to look for excuses to take a break," said Eeth.

Raven sighed and got back to work; she was still wary of pushing him.

Another twenty minutes passed.

"… Will you want to look at this before I send it?" she asked, finger poised on the send button. But before he could answer that, their door announced a visitor. It was Bindi. Raven shot to her feet in a flash. "I'll get it."

"No, I will," Eeth said firmly, rising from his seat. "And, yes, I will want to look at it, so you had better check it once again."

The look Raven gave him would have frozen over Mustafar. Scowling at his retreating back, she flopped back down onto the couch and folded her arms.

Bindi bowed in greeting. "Can I see Raven, please?"

"Raven is grounded," Eeth replied, his face impassive. "She is not allowed to socialise right now."

Bindi didn't look surprised. In fact, she looked resigned. "Oh. Can you tell her that I'll be out of the Temple doing research with my master from tomorrow afternoon and that I hope she's okay because she was upset yesterday?" She said loudly enough to be overheard by anyone who might be sitting in their common room. She wasn't worried about Raven; the girl had a master to take care of her, after all. She was concerned that she had been upset, however.

"I think she heard you," Eeth said politely. "I wish you success. May the Force be with you."

When Eeth palmed their door shut, he was met with a scowl. "You could have just let me talk to her for a few minutes."

"Not when you are grounded," Eeth said matter-of-factly. "Are you done with your letter?"

"No, master." If Eeth was planning to check her work then she had some corrections to make. Still scowling at him, she picked up her stylus and started rewriting.

Eventually, she finished the letter to Eeth's satisfaction and it was sent. By the time their workout came around that afternoon, Raven was more than ready for it; sitting around writing was not easy for the fidgety apprentice, and she needed that outlet to get rid of some pent-up energy.

Eeth made it a particularly demanding workout because he sensed that Raven needed him to. However, he did not make it a particularly long one because Raven needed to study for her exams. Today, he took the time to study with her, which he had rarely been able to do during the past weeks, and patiently explained the concepts she had not understood. Her maths exam was tomorrow and he wanted her to do as well as could be realistically expected.

Raven appreciated Eeth's help, as much as any who hated math could appreciate such a thing. It was long and boring, but at least it was better than doing it on her own. When he finally relented, the padawan flopped back into her chair, scrubbing at her eyes. "Can I watch some holo for a while, please." She needed a break and was too tired after their workout for anything physical.

"No, you can help me prepare dinner," Eeth said. "It is about time. After all, you will have an hour of meditation to perform afterwards."

That wasn't exactly a thrilling evening line-up. It wasn't that Raven didn't like cooking; she actually enjoyed it as Eeth often taught her how to make things. It was more the fact that watching holo was easier. The extra hour of meditation was also not something she looked forward to. In fact, it just reminded her that she was being punished and that it was far from over!

And indeed, when they had eaten dinner and cleared the table, Eeth pulled out a chair, sat down and said unceremoniously: "Bare your bottom and get over my lap." He did not think any kind of preamble was necessary. Raven knew why this was happening.

Eeth might not want preamble, but Raven was all for it. "Aww, master noooo!" She whined, jumping around a bit for emphasis. It was going to hurt and she didn't want it!

Eeth glared at her. "I am not going to go back on this," he said grimly. "The only thing you can hope to achieve by complaining is to be sent to cut a switch. If you do not want that, do as I told you. Now."

Raven looked at him, her theatrics momentarily ceasing. He was going to make her cut it herself? She had never done that before. Embarrassing scenarios of having to carry the thing back through the busy Temple corridors flashed through her mind and had her bared and across his knee in a heartbeat. This would be bad, but at least it was private.

Eeth lost no time in raising his hand and bringing it down on her bottom with quite a bit of force although nowhere near as hard as he could have. He was satisfied to see that there were no traces left of yesterday's punishment. This handspanking was by no means going to be the excruciating affair that yesterday's caning had been. It was going to hurt, though; Eeth did not deal out token spankings.

And it did hurt. Raven whined, wriggled, pleaded and sniffled her way through the first dozen or so, but she did not last much longer than that before her sniffling became unintelligible, and she gave up fighting him. As a creche youngling, spankings had just been part of life. Sure, they had hurt badly enough so that the perpetrator thought twice before earning them. Some kids even thought that certain things were worth the bit of pain, but those had been nothing like this. Each time Raven found herself in this position, she swore blind that she would never again earn physical punishment from Eeth. Yeah, the best-laid plans of mice and padawans…

Eeth spanked Raven until she was crying and would undoubtedly feel this when sitting down. It was not bad enough to prevent her from sitting, though, nor would there be any damage left by tomorrow morning. This was essentially a reminder. Like everything Eeth did, it was a thorough one.

Helping her up from his lap, he handed Raven a handkerchief, waiting for her to calm down.

Raven cried into the handkerchief, using it to hide her face and tears. It was futile, of course; Eeth would have to be deaf and blind not to notice. Still, it had hurt, and the padawan had never seen the point in trying to pretend it didn't. She just didn't like that it made her feel like a creche youngling to cry over getting spanked. Well, it was worse now, not that she took much solace from that.

It did not take long for her to pull herself together, though. It might have hurt, but it hadn't been nearly as bad as yesterday. Thus, when her sobs stopped catching in her chest and her eyes finally dried, she gave Eeth a piteous expression. Why? Firstly, because he'd just spanked her and it had really hurt. Secondly, because she knew what came next and she really didn't want to do it.

Completely ignoring the puppy-dog eyes pointed at him, Eeth said: "One hour's meditation on obedience now. I will tell you when your time is up."

Given that she had just been spanked for disobedience, Raven was reluctant to argue the order. So, still sulking, and despite wishing she could do just about anything else, the padawan pulled up her pants and dragged herself to her mat. She flopped face down, buried her face in her elbow and tried to block out the discomfort from her ass. It was a struggle to clear her mind, and even harder to stay focused! She shifted around several times, trying out any position that wasn't sitting until eventually, she gave up. "Master, will you meditate with me?" she asked because an hour was an eternity to Raven.

This time, Eeth thought before replying. This meditation was meant to be punishment, after all. But he also knew how difficult it was for Raven to remain focussed for such a long period of time. Therefore, he finally answered: "For the second half hour, if you do a good job in the first." This seemed to him to be a justifiable compromise.

Raven got to her knees and looked over to where Eeth sat at their dining room table. Half an hour of meditation was not too bad. It would still suck to do it by herself, but beggars could not be choosers, she knew. "I will," Raven promised. She reluctantly did as she had done the last time and knelt facing the opposite direction, her forehead thunking gently into the wall. This was not the most comfortable position, but it had the added advantages of sparing her backside further pain by not sitting on it, while preventing herself from becoming distracted, or worse, falling asleep!

After the hour of meditation was complete. Eeth allowed Raven half an hour of holo, knowing that she mostly watched nature channels and that this was at least remotely entertaining. The two weeks of grounding would be demanding enough as it was. On both of them!


	5. Chapter 5

It was Wednesday afternoon and a mere four days had passed since the disastrous field trip to the planet of Pellebet. However, to Raven, who was grounded, those four days had draaaaagged out, and had felt more like a month! Why she had thought it was a good idea to free an entire coop of battery hens (which, as she had found out researching for her essay, turned out to be no less than three hundred birds) was now beyond her. Or so it felt at this minute. At the time, the padawan's sense of justice and pity for the caged birds had won over her sense of duty. Well, she was paying for that now. The girl kicked at the wall as she rounded the corner, leaving behind a satisfying skid mark of black boot polish. There, take that! She had rebelled! The moment of satisfaction was interrupted by one of the Temple's cleaning bots who chirped at her in what could only be considered an admonitory tone for a droid as it extended a bristly arm to clean off the mess. Raven tried to shush the thing, but when this failed to do anything but make it beep louder, she took off running for the lift that would take her to the quarters that she shared with Eeth; the last thing the padawan needed right now was to be caught out in any sort of mischief. Eeth had told her in no uncertain terms that her nightly spanking would be improved upon if she found any trouble.

There were only two days of classes and exams left in this cycle, and then she was free for two whole weeks! Okay, so one of those weeks Raven was still going to be grounded, but she hoped to convince Eeth that she had learned her lesson and that maybe, just maybe, he might relent. Raven entered their quarters, threw her pack into her bedroom and sat on the floor beneath their door comm unit to pull off her boots. She could not sense Eeth, which usually meant that there would be a note with instructions on their dining room table. There was, and today was to be a carbon copy of the previous: Lunch, study for the remaining exams, complete her chores, workout, shower, study more, eat dinner, try talking her way out of getting spanked, meditation, maybe some holo and bed. Well, at least something smelled good. Apparently, Eeth had cooked that morning and left a pot of vegetable casserole on the stove, so she pushed the datapad aside and served herself to lunch.

Raven followed the instructions. However, when it was getting close to dinner time and Eeth was still not home, the padawan started to get her hopes up. What if Eeth were busy with whatever it was he was doing and didn't come home in time to spank her! Surely he couldn't spank her the next day because he missed his opportunity! Right?! That thought had her working extra hard on her workout, but unfortunately, it was not to be: Eeth returned with plenty of time to dish out her punishment. It didn't hurt any more than the previous evenings, but tonight, when Eeth let her up, Raven cried for longer. The extended punishment, coupled with being grounded and having no free time, was beginning to wear on her.

Eeth realised that. It did not mean he was going to relent, of course. But he did offer her a hug, along with a handkerchief; and he allowed for more time than usual before finally ordering her to do her meditation. He shared half of it with her, as he had done the past nights.

When Eeth roused Raven from their meditation, she scrubbed at her eyes. The half hour of meditation she had to do alone was horrible, but the second half with Eeth was quite enjoyable. She had been studying hard and was tired, not that the padawan would ever admit as much. She looked from Eeth to the holo and then started fiddling with the hem on her tunic. "Pleeease?"

Eeth sighed. "Alright," he said. "Half an hour's nature channel." He hesitated briefly. "Unless you want to play a … game." It had taken quite an effort to say that. He had never played games with Lakhri of his own accord but his master had sometimes bullied him into it and it had appeared that Lakhri had enjoyed those occasions.

Raven blinked. Eeth hadn't ever offered to play games with her before. At least not of the sort that wasn't disguised as training! "Yes!" Raven was about to ask him what game he wanted to play when she paused; Eeth probably didn't want to play any game and was probably doing this just for her. She smiled, touched by the gesture. "Exploding battleships?"

"Alright," Eeth said. He knew the game because Lakhri had sometimes persuaded him to play it during long spaceship trips, in the last years of his padawanhood when Eeth had softened a little. At least it was a game that helped to learn strategic thinking, he told himself as he set up his datapad to connect to Raven's and load the game.

Raven took her time setting up her ships. Eeth was going down!

Half an hour later …

"You cheated," Raven said good-naturedly when he blew her last five ship out of the sky.

"I," said Eeth with unparalleled dignity, "do not cheat."

"Pff! Says he who totally cheated," Raven replied, unconvinced. She shoved her datapad down her sleep shirt and put up her personal shields. Why? Because she was making an effort to hide her screen so Eeth couldn't cheat. The thing was, Raven knew he wasn't really cheating, but it was fun to wind him up, which was what she was trying to do now. Also, she hoped he would let them play another game; this was a bit of fun she had not counted on and it was far better than going to bed or watching the holo channel!

"Off to bed with you," said Eeth, unmoved by her antics. "You have got another exam tomorrow." Zoology, in fact. Eeth hoped that despite all the trouble on the field trip, Raven was going to do reasonably well in that one. At least she had an interest in the subject which could not be claimed for maths!

Raven lay her head onto the table and looked up at him with big, pleading eyes. "Just one more game? I'll even let you cheat again?"

"Now you are being impertinent," Eeth said sternly. "Your time might be put to better use by improving your strategy. Get ready for bed."

Impertinent? Cheeky, perhaps, but Raven did not argue; Eeth had been more than generous this evening and she did not want to repay that with sass.

Eeth paused for a fraction of a second. Then he added: "If you are quick about it, we can play another round before you go to bed." Once again, he had no idea where that had come from. Raven was supposed to be punished, for the Force's sake! But then, the spankings, additional meditations and the period of her grounding were hard enough on her as it was, he reasoned. As was missing Saturday's field trip. He was glad that Granzien had found the resolve to exclude her from it, much as it had disappointed his padawan. She would be a hazard to take on missions if she did not learn fast to curb her impulsive behaviour!

Raven's face lit up at this. "I'll be like greased lightning, watch!" And with that, Raven slid her datapad from her sleepshirt, tossed it onto their dining room table and ran for her bedroom like someone had set her on fire. She washed her face quickly. Then, she brushed her hair and teeth while sitting on the toilet, which made for a bit of a half-assed job at each, but it was done. Exactly four minutes later, Raven flashed from her bedroom and skidded on her socks to a halt before her chair where Eeth still sat opposite. She gave him a smile that was all teeth. "Pretty fast, yes?"

"Yes," Eeth replied, eying her hair dubiously for a moment. He decided to let it slide, though. It was not as if she was leaving their quarters in that state. He pulled up his datapad and started another round.

This time Raven managed to take out at least one of his ships before he destroyed her entire armada.

"Thanks for playing games with me," she told Eeth as he tucked her into bed that evening. Today hadn't been thrilling as she'd missed out on the padawans' lounge, but playing games with Eeth had been the highlight of her day.

"You are welcome," said Eeth, trying hard to hide the slight sense of embarrassment this sentence caused him. He had never quite known how to deal with gratitude. It was not that he did not appreciate it, per se; it just made him uncomfortable for some reason. He pulled the blanket straight, wished Raven a good night and left. Maybe, just maybe, they would get the period of her grounding over with without further incident.

* * *

The following day was frustrating for Raven. Firstly, her zoology exam meant that she was surrounded by excited chatter about Saturday's field trip to the Akahiret cliffs that she was not allowed to attend. Secondly, she was still grounded! So, at the end of the exam when most of her classmates were making arrangements to meet up for lunch in the dining hall, Raven had to go home and work on that stupid essay. It sucked. It also hurt that she could not share in her class's excitement; she had worked hard during this cycle and wanted to go on that field trip. It wasn't easy to watch everyone leave the classroom still chatting about how great it was going to be. Raven remained in her seat, eyeing master Granzien curiously. Maybe, if she looked suitably sorry for herself, he might just relent. It was worth a try.

When the last of her class filed out, Raven collected her datapad from the desk and took it to where Granzien sat, inputting and marking off questions. "Master Granzien?" she asked, getting his attention. Raven wore her most piteous expression: she was the epitome of contrition and looking for all the world like someone had run over her pet puppy. "Please, will you reconsider? Everyone else gets to go, and I worked just as hard." Actually, with Eeth setting her schedule, she had probably worked harder, but Raven didn't think it would help to state that just yet. She would save the 'I'm apprenticed to the strictest master in the Temple' trump card for last.

Granzien looked up and sighed. He was not at all inexperienced and had therefore been bracing himself for something like this.

"I don't think that line would work on your master," he said, "nor on any other Jedi master I know. So why do you think it'd work on me?"

Raven had to think about that. Initially, she was tempted to say that she thought him easier-going, but that wasn't the sole reason. She leant into his desk and played with the hem on her tunic. "Because you know how it feels. You learned from your mistakes, and so have I. I might not get another chance to visit the cliffs. Besides, you know what Eeth is like. I'm not exactly getting out of this without the direst of consequences already."

"Yes, because you deserve them and because this is how you will learn," Granzien replied. "As did I. I'm sorry, but this is not negotiable. I will send your master a project you can work on on Saturday."

His consistent refusal (coupled with the week she had had and the one she had to look forward to) finally saw Raven's frustrations peak. She thumped her fist onto his desk, sending a stylus flying into the wall. "This isn't fair! Everyone else gets to go and I have to do yet more work. Don't you think I already have enough work to do! I don't do anything but work! It's all work, nothing else!" Somewhere buried beneath her frustration was the knowledge that none of this was Granzien's fault, but at this moment, Raven couldn't have cared less whose fault this was; she was sick of missing out!

Granzien leaned back in his chair. Fortunately for Raven, he was a lot more patient than Eeth, not to mention loath to punish students.

"Welcome to life as a Jedi padawan," he said wryly. "Now bring me back my stylus and stop this tantrum."

"I'm not having! A! TANTRUM!" Raven replied in a forced tone while summoning his stylus to her hand. "It's not all work for the others, they get to go!" Raven slammed the stylus onto his desk; close to tears but managing to avoid completely losing her shit.

"You're so having a tantrum," Granzien said, "and you don't want me to call your master and ask him to stop it for you. So calm down."

She did not. There was just no way out of this; her life sucked! Raven wanted to scream that she hated him, his stupid class and the entire Jedi Order (which was possibly true at that moment) but refrained. Instead, she gave him a look that was meant to be scathing but actually turned out to be heartbroken, turned and fled from the classroom.

Granzien sighed. He did not like having to be strict but he also knew Raven would benefit in the long run. For a moment, he pondered calling Eeth and forewarning him but he discarded the thought. Let the man learn how to deal with emotions by himself.

Raven kept her head down on the way back to the quarters she shared with Eeth. Firstly, because she didn't want to see anyone else happy, and secondly, because she was close to tears. She wasn't crying, Force no, Raven was too brave for that. Besides, padawans did not cry over missing out on field trips regardless of how much they really, really wanted to go. By the time Raven reached their quarters that afternoon, she was no happier, but she had taken the long way home so that she had at least calmed down and was no longer teary-eyed. The door panel was treated to a thump rather than a push, and she strode directly towards her bedroom.

"Padawan," said Eeth, causing Raven to stop in her tracks. He had been sitting at the set table for a few minutes now. "Mind your manners. Lunch is waiting." He had no idea why Raven saw fit to head straight for her room without greeting him but since he had given her no immediate reason for this, he was not going to let her get away with it.

Raven clicked her tongue. "Good afternoon, master," she said, giving a bow that was a tad on the elaborate side, and intended to convey her annoyance over being called out on her manners. "I'm not hungry. Can I go to my room?" Raven thought it was in her best interest to add that instead of just storming off. This was Eeth, after all.

"No," said Eeth, frowning at her. "You will wash your hands and at least eat a bit of soup and a slice of bread. You have had a long morning at school and you need to eat. Unless you are feeling ill?" He did not think she was but he rather wanted to make sure.

The thought of lying to him flashed through Raven's mind, but was quickly discarded as insanity; she had yet to lie to Eeth and get away with it. The padawan sighed in defeat. "No, master." She wasn't sick, she was just tired of being grounded and sulking over missing out on the field trip. Well, she wasn't doing that project from Granzien. Raven would die before she allowed him to rub salt into the wounds by giving her yet more work! Still choking over the perceived injustice of this all, Raven strode into her bathroom to do as told.

When she returned to the common room, Eeth was standing next to the table, arms folded across his chest.

That Eeth had gotten up from the table had Raven stopping well before reaching him.

"You were home late, padawan," Eeth said sternly. "Did you have a good reason for it or did you just dawdle?"

Raven emulated his pose, if not his expression. "I was talking to Master Granzien," she told him.

Eeth eyed her for a moment. She did not seem entirely truthful but nor did she seem to be lying outright. "About what?" he inquired. He just hoped the man had not gone back on his word about the field trip! That would be so like him…

"About allowing me to go on the field trip." Raven threw her hands up in the air for emphasis. "I worked hard in that class, probably harder than anyone else because of you." She folded her arms. "And I miss out on the reward for that. It's not fair."

"The reason you are missing out is not because anyone thinks you did not work hard enough," Eeth informed her. "And you know it. Whether you worked hard will hopefully be reflected in your grade, not in your participation in this field trip. Nobody forced you to repeatedly disobey your teacher. Since you still felt like doing so, you will have to live with the consequences. Now eat lunch before it gets cold."

Raven could argue all of that, but she did not. It wouldn't make Granzien change his mind, anyway, and Eeth wasn't known for his patience with arguments. So, she unfolded her arms and sat. She did not soften, though, as this wasn't any fairer just because Eeth didn't consider their field trip a reward for all the hard work like she did.

Eeth served Raven a small portion of soup and gave her half a slice of bread. He had grown used to what a poor eater she was and had no intention to force her to eat more than she felt she could handle but he was adamant that she eat regularly.

* * *

"After breakfast, you will start on your project for Master Granzien," Eeth informed Raven on Saturday morning. "He wants you to research shaw-ning birds' breeding habits. The first step will be to do the reading he has assigned." Granzien had, in fact, gone out of his way to make the assignment more than a burdensome chore. Among other things, he had sent a number of holovids. Raven's task would be not to write a report on the birds, as was usually required, but to produce a film collage. If she did a good job of it, Eeth had half a mind to take her to the South Pole zoo tomorrow where she could see the birds for herself. But before she got to any of that, she would have to do the reading, which Eeth assumed would take up most of the morning.

Raven ignored Eeth's pronouncement although she could not hide the fact that her face fell just a little at receiving it. Of course, she could not read Eeth's mind any more than she knew how Granzien had structured her assignment. What was prominent and pressing to Raven was that she would be sitting on her ass reading while the rest of her classmates were on their way to a memorable day experiencing the Akahiret cliffs. Raven paddled in her oatmeal with her spoon. She wore an expression of resignation and resentment, as she had during the last couple of days. Still, her resolve had not faltered; she was not doing this project out of principle.

"Finish your oatmeal," Eeth said. He waited for her to pick up her spoon and then continued: "I downloaded the reading to a datapad. You will go through all of it and take notes. When you are done, I will give you instructions for the second part of your assignment." Eeth felt that the second part was, in fact, a bit too much of a reward for what had been outrageously bad behaviour. He would still have Raven do it, of course, but he was not going to tell her about it until she had finished the boring part – i.e., the reading – to his satisfaction. Else, she might take away the message that she only needed to do as she was told when there was an incentive.

When they had finished breakfast, Eeth handed Raven her datapad. "You have until lunchtime," he told her. "If you are done earlier, let me know." He might allow her to take a break if she was. But again, he was not going to provide incentives. He was only going to reward good behaviour after the fact.

Raven took the datapad and, given that Eeth didn't keep her back to help clean up the breakfast dishes, she went to her bedroom. Typically, Raven would do her work on their common room floor or at their dining room table, but not today. Today, she had no intention of doing any work. She wasn't reading this on principle.

Eeth left her to her task. At this point, he had no reason to suspect she was not going to do any of her work, if only because it was so obvious that she was not going to get away with it. He was, however, surprised when after two hours, no request for a break or a snack occurred, so he went to check.

Raven looked up from the datapad where she had been playing exploding battleships, flicked it to off and tossed it onto the bed where she was lying.

Eeth frowned. He might not have been suspicious from the outset but he was now. "How is your reading coming along?" he asked. "How many texts have you finished?"

There was a moment of hesitation wherein Raven contemplated lying to him. She did not, though — for two reasons, the first being that she had yet to get away with lying to Eeth and the second being that this was a matter of principle. It was unfair that she had to remain behind and do yet more work when the rest of her class was rewarded with a trip to the Akahiret cliffs. Raven had already told Eeth how she felt about this, so (she reasoned) this should come as no surprise. "None. I'm not doing it," she stated resolutely and folded her arms.

"Is that so?" Eeth asked, raising his eyebrows. "And you think that is your decision to make?"

"This isn't about decisions, it's a point of principle," Raven replied evenly, her chin raised.

"A moot point, then," said Eeth coolly. "If there is one lesson I want you to take home from all this, it is to respect the judgment of your superiors. You seem to insist on thinking that you know better. Let me assure you, you do not."

He pulled out her desk chair, grabbed her arm and managed to sit down and fling her across his lap in less than five seconds. Without losing a beat, he pulled out his paddle and brought it crashing down onto her bottom. He had not bothered to bare it; he knew that his paddle was still going to have a noticeable effect. And he applied it fast and with vigour.

Ordinarily, Raven would not ever dream of attempting to fight her way out of correction; it was not honorable and, to a lesser extent, such resistance was viewed as cowardly by other padawans. This time, however, Raven felt she had the moral high ground. Granzien's punishment had been unjust and that was that. Unfortunately, no matter how hard Raven kicked and tried struggling free, she could not. Eeth was somehow managing to hold her down without missing a beat, literally. It really fucking hurt, too, which wasn't helping her plight to remain stoic and act like Eeth's efforts were having no effect. "Stop! This isn't fair! You're not being faaaair!" she yelled, her voice cracking a bit on the last word.

"You disobeyed and you are being punished for it," Eeth snapped, continuing to bring down the paddle with vigour. "If that is not fair, I do not know what is. It is not up to you to decide whether to comply with the terms of your punishment."

He emphasised that message with a flurry of swats to his padawan's upper thighs.

"I'm already being punished!" Raven wailed, and then any further protestations were cut off as Eeth started peppering her thighs. The squeal that came out of Raven at this point could have cracked glass! She kicked and struggled for another few swats and then she started to cry. If the pain wasn't bad enough, the feeling of helplessness and lack of control over her situation sure was.

"You are being punished right now for failing to accept your punishment," Eeth barked, not letting up on her in the slightest. "You can end this any time."

There might have been a layer or two between her and the paddle, but Raven would swear blind it made no difference and, her pride be damned, she wanted Eeth to stop. Thus she brought out: "I'm sorrreeeee! I'm sorrrreee!" An apology was generally a safe response. It didn't always work, but it was always safe.

"Are you going to do the work that your teacher assigned you?" Eeth inquired while dealing out another set of swats.

"Yeeesssss!" Raven wailed. It grated on her that she had given in so easily; that a mere paddling could have her tossing her moral stance aside! Raven was supposed to be tough! But it really hurt, and Eeth wasn't stopping, and her pride be damned, she didn't want any more swats!

"Alright," Eeth said grimly, letting up on her. He hauled her up by the shoulders and said: "You will do your work now. In the common room, where I can watch you. And for tonight's punishment, you will cut a switch." He produced a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her, the expression on his face stern.

The second he righted her, Raven started jumping around in circles and desperately trying to rub out the sting with both hands. It helped a little, but it did not lessen the fact that Eeth had just paddled her. Hearing that he expected her to cut a switch that evening was enough of a shock to stop her sniffling. She ignored the handkerchief and gave him what was meant to be a scathing look, but given her watery eyes and trembling chin, it turned out to be more of a pout. This was simply not a battle she could win, a realisation that was late in coming. It should have been obvious from the get-go but her righteous indignation had kind of overshadowed any logic or self-preservation.

Eeth picked up Raven's datapad from her bed and pressed it into her hand. "Get to work," he ordered. "Right now. No stalling, no dawdling. I want you to be done by tonight because we might have plans for tomorrow." He nodded with his chin towards the common room.

Raven was still trying to fry him alive with her glare, but Eeth hadn't given her many options here. She wasn't going to talk to him, though. So, despite the fact that she wanted to call him out over being a bully, the padawan ran into their common room, grabbed a pillow from the couch and threw herself onto the floor. She didn't want to do this assignment, but what were her choices? Refusal, even on moral grounds, had gone over like a lead balloon. Reluctantly, Raven started reading. It was slow at first because she kept having to swipe at her face, not to mention her ass hurt. Well, at least she wasn't sitting on it. Small mercies.

Eeth went back to his work. He did so at the common room table from where he could watch Raven. He did not care whether she considered him a bully; he was only interested in being obeyed.

Another hour or so passed by before Raven started to grow seriously bored of all the reading. Sure, it was about shaw-ning birds and their breeding habits, something that Raven would ordinarily find fascinating. However, her ass had only just stopped burning, and now she was hungry, too. She looked up from her datapad to where Eeth sat at their dining room table, and her chin came out; she was not asking him for a snack as much as she wanted one! Eeth was getting the silent treatment.

Eeth assumed as much; ordinarily, Raven would long ago have started begging him for a glass of juice or a cookie. Well, if she absolutely wanted to be silly, she was welcome. Eeth could wait it out. As long as she did her work, he was not going to force his attention on her.

Raven continued giving Eeth the silent treatment, to her own detriment; she was hungry. But she was planning to starve to death before asking him for a cookie. The reading wasn't exactly boring, but there was a lot of it. Also, the fact that she was stuck here doing this instead of exploring the Akahiret cliffs still felt like a huge injustice to her. Trying to vent that frustration had only gotten her in more trouble, though. There was little she could do but continue brooding. Even if Granzien and Eeth decided that she was right, and this punishment was unjust, she had already missed out! It was all too late.

Eeth finally went to prepare a quick lunch. Nearly three hours after Raven had started her reading, he told her: "Please help me set the table. How much reading have you left to do?"

Wordlessly, Raven rose from where she had been laying, her butt and one leg up the wall and datapad resting on her chest. Given that she had not yet forgiven him for any of this, least of all upgrading her to a switch, which in her opinion was entirely unwarranted, Raven grunted a curt: "Two chapters," and stalked off to do as he said.

Eeth patiently waited until they were seated at the table. Then he said: "You have two choices. Either you stop sulking, you finish your reading, we go to the pools and you complete your assignment in comfort afterwards. Or you continue sulking, in which case our workout will be cancelled and I will give you something to sulk about. You have until the end of lunch to make up your mind."

Eeth's tolerance with silent brooding had always been rather limited. He did not see what anyone might hope to accomplish by it. Well, that was not quite true. Of course he could see that it was meant to make him feel bad about what he had done. That just was not going to happen, though, and therefore, Raven's attempts to punish him were pointless and only harming herself. He rather thought he was doing her a favour by stopping them.

Punishing him was exactly what Raven was trying to do; if it was good for the goose, and all… She continued to sulk over lunch, her stubbornness not allowing her to soften. However, the padawan started seriously thinking about whether or not it was worth it to continue after his threat. Again, she felt this was unfair: now she wasn't even allowed to sulk about the unfairness of all of this! Finally, when she finished her food, Raven folded her arms and glared. "I'm allowed to protest this. You bullied me into doing that stupid assignment, and I still missed out on the cliffs. You're making everything worse and worse!" she told him matter-of-factly. It was true: the more Raven rebelled against Eeth, the worse things got for her. Her pride was smarting even more now.

"I," said Eeth, "offered to take you to the pools. If you choose to forfeit that offer and opt to sulk instead, it is you who is making everything worse and worse. Not me. Continuing to protest a well-deserved punishment is never in your best interest. I leave it up to you if you want to learn that lesson the easy or the hard way. You have five more minutes to make that choice."

Raven's chin came out and her arms tightened around her chest. She didn't want to give in and act like there was nothing that she ought to be mad over. Fine, so it was her own fault for disobeying Granzien in the first place, but this punishment was going on for too long in her opinion. Unwilling to answer him, but equally unwilling to push him further, Raven nodded and returned to her datapad. She did want to go to the pools, but she was also having a hard time not taking this out on Eeth. Well, at least she was no longer hungry. That stand had almost not been worth it.

"Are you done with your reading?" Eeth asked Raven about an hour after lunch. "And, more importantly, are you done sulking?" He was more than willing to take her to the pools, which was a treat even on normal days, let alone after she had been paddled. But he was not going to do it if she continued to alternately give him dirty looks and pretend he did not exist. He had no intention to encourage such behaviour.

Raven was stubborn, but she wasn't stupid. Each time she had rebelled, Eeth had made her life harder. The satisfaction of ignoring and annoying him was not worth it; she had to concede. Thus, she sighed and acquiesced, as much as it grated on her, and it really did.

Their time at the pools was enough to keep her from sulking. It was fun even if it was training, and the half hour on the slides helped to kick the rest of her resentment. She was still not pleased with Eeth for punishing her, but at least she was able to prevent making things harder on herself.

When they returned from the pools, Eeth handed Raven the instructions for the rest of her assignment: producing a video collage on shaw-ning birds' breeding habits from a collection of materials Granzien had sent her.

"You may use the holo terminal in the common room to watch the videos and work with them," he said.

Creating a video collage was the very last thing that Raven expected to be doing after the day she'd had. In fact, the padawan expected to be saddled with an essay. That's usually what these assignments turned out to be; read, research, write. A collage actually sounded like it might be a bit of fun. Raven still had not forgiven Eeth entirely, but she had managed to drop the sullen attitude enough so that no more woe was added to her day. The collage did indeed turn out to be fun. The work Raven created was rather good and she was pleased with it.

Eeth thought Granzien would be happy with the result. Raven's grades would come in on Monday. While this project was not part of her zoology grade, she would need to pass it in order to pass the class; most likely, Granzien would give her some feedback as well. In any case, Eeth decided to take Raven to the dining hall for dinner. He was not exactly feeling bad about grounding her for this long but he assumed that she would need a break from time to time, else he would spend his days disciplining her for temper tantrums and sulking.

"If you behave yourself tonight, I will take you to the South Pole zoo tomorrow," he said. "They have a habitat of shaw-ning birds. It will be very educational." Which was, of course, the sole conceivable reason for taking her!

For the first time all day, Raven smiled. Of course she had never been to the South Pole zoo before, and that Eeth was going to take her, despite all the trouble she had gotten into lately, came as a welcome surprise. She thought his proviso snort-worthy, 'if she behaved'. Pff, what was the alternative? If she didn't behave, Eeth came down on her like a tonne of bricks anyway. Well, Raven wasn't about to look a gift bantha in the mouth; this was something to look forward to, and Force knew Raven could use that. Being grounded really was almost as bad as physical punishment. Almost.

Raven was not her typically chatty self over dinner, but she did ask Eeth a few questions about the zoo which he was able to answer. It sounded like it was going to be fun. Just about anything that had them leaving the Temple, Raven considered an adventure.

When they returned home, Raven changed into her sleep shirt (there was no point remaining dressed as Eeth would not allow her guests or to go to the lounge). She was still not finished working on the ten-page essay on appropriate and inappropriate ways to advocate animal rights, and hoped that having spent all day on assignments already, Eeth would cut her some slack.

Eeth, however, had other plans. He detached a small utility knife from his belt and held it out to Raven.

"Go to the nearest meditation garden and cut a switch," he told her.

The look on Raven's face would have said it all. He had been serious about that! She looked from the knife, and then back up at Eeth. "I don't know how." Which was true. Raven had never been asked to cut a switch before, nor had any of her teachers used one on her.

Eeth gave her a scrutinising look. He could sense no deception in her. Most likely, she really had no idea.

"Alright," he said. "We will go together and I will show you. Should the situation arise again, you will be able to do it on your own."

"Force, no! Can't you just tell me what to do, or draw me a picture or ... something?" Having to go cut a switch was bad enough, but having to take 'switch cutting 101' with her master was another matter entirely.

"I do not think you are in any position to argue," said Eeth sternly. He swept his cloak from the cloak rack and pulled it on. "Come," he said, the tone of his voice brooking no objection.

Raven whined as she took her cloak and followed him into the outside corridor. She was still dressed in her sleep clothes but with the cloak wrapped about her, nobody would be any the wiser. She followed along in silence until they were getting close to the meditation garden nearest to their quarters. "Master, wait. I can work it out. Really." How hard could it be? At the time, she had hoped that by admitting she didn't know how would force him into using something that sounded less painful, but that had backfired. Raven was noticing a trend here; each time she tried to get out of something, it got worse.

Which was exactly the lesson Eeth wanted her to take home from this, of course.

"You told me you do not know how," he said calmly. "Therefore, I will show you. That way, we will not waste time on futile attempts."

He palmed the door panel and the transparent doors to the meditation garden opened. Eeth beckoned for Raven to go in. The garden was nearly empty, but not quite; an old Jedi master was sitting beneath a tree and a middle-aged knight was lying on his back next to the creek, gazing up at the starry sky that could be seen through the glass ceiling. Neither of them reacted to Eeth's and Raven's entrance.

"First, you want a bush or tree with springy branches and no thorns," Eeth said in a low voice. "Pick one."

Raven grabbed the first branch she laid her hands on and ripped it off. Then, she stuffed it inside her cloak before anyone could see it. "Got it. Let's go."

Eeth frowned. "No. Show it to me. It looked too thin to me."

It was thin, that was why it was easy to snap from the bush! Also, she suspected that thin would equate to less pain. Reluctantly, she pulled the thing out, still shielding it from outside view. "Master, please … This is embarrassing," she hissed. And it really was! Sure, the two Jedi in the garden had not paid them any mind, yet for some reason having other people know that she was going to get whacked with a switch was making her cringe.

And that was, of course, one of the reasons for which this was an effective punishment: Padawans tended to avoid it for more reasons than one.

Eeth held out the knife to Raven once again. "Find one that is about twice as thick and a little longer," he said. "Cut it. Try to pick one that has few buds. The less of them it has, the less there will be for you to remove."

It was with great reluctance that Raven went about finding a suitable switch. When the one she had cut passed muster, she tucked it under her cloak and tried to walk like, well, like she wasn't trying to hide a stick under her cloak! No easy task. Suffice it to say that Raven's introduction to switches continued getting worse, as actually being swatted with one stung like nothing else. It was not a deep burning ache like the cane, but a whippy sting that had the padawan wanting to jump up and down after each lick. Eeth would have none of that, of course. He was unceremonious about the whole thing, ordering her to bend over a chair and dealing out twelve hard and fast strokes. His left hand was pressing down on her lower back while he did so, preventing her from moving out of position. He gave her a couple of minutes to calm down and then mercilessly instructed her to meditate for an hour. As he had done all week, he shared half of this meditation with her, or possibly a little more.

That evening Raven lay in bed thinking about the disaster this last week had been. She had made a mess of the field trip and handled the punishment badly. To her credit, it was some punishment! But still, Raven was a Jedi apprentice and ought to have done better. Most of the welts had disappeared by now. Eeth had never allowed her to go to bed without some healing if the punishment was bad enough to prevent sleeping. Still, the girl could feel just enough discomfort for the punishment to be considered effective. And it was. Raven would make sure that she never earned such upgrades again. Ever! The painful part of this punishment was over with now, but she was still grounded for another week and had the essay to complete. That was going to be tough, given that there were no classes to occupy her days with. At least there was the South Pole zoo to look forward to tomorrow.

* * *

Sunday was the first day without a night-time punishment. And Eeth made good on his promise and did indeed take Raven to the South Pole zoo, despite the fact that she was still grounded. This would go on for another week, so he reasoned that she would really need a break, albeit a supervised one. The South Pole zoo hosted many endangered species in reasonably large, suitable environments. It was specialised on birds and flying reptiles and therefore extended across fifty levels, with many elevators and watchtowers. Eeth rather thought Raven would enjoy it.

Raven was indeed enjoying herself at the zoo. He let her lead the way, going wherever her whim took them. They started off at the incubator houses. Here they were able to watch the incubation process in most stages of development, for various species. Those that weren't currently on show had been replaced by holo projections of what they would look like. Raven was fascinated, especially so when they came upon the shaw-ning nests. The padawan might have spent all day watching to see if what she had studied matched her observation.

"Padawan," Eeth finally said patiently. "We only have this one day, for now. Are you sure you want to spend it here, and only here? If you are, I am fine with it. If you want to make it to at least some of the other attractions, though, we should get moving soon."

Raven stood up from where she was examining an egg that was about to hatch, her nose practically pressed up against the glass. "Alright." After all, she had to concede that he had a point, and there was a lot they had yet to see. Thus, they moved along to the flying reptile enclosure. This wasn't as interesting as the babies, but still, some of the flying reptiles in this enclosure were totally weird-looking.

"Are you hungry?" Eeth asked after a few hours. "There is a restaurant in the tower overlooking the blue dragon enclosure." He pointed at a narrow and enormously tall glass structure up ahead.

"They have blue dragons …" Raven's mouth was open a little bit at the mention of this, and all thought of food left her mind! Then, before Eeth could comment on that, she hit him with another. "How do you know this place so well, anyway? No offence, master, but you don't exactly strike me as the sort of man who enjoys going on 'outings to the zoo'."

Eeth raised his eyebrows. "Just like you, I received an education," he said. "Including zoology classes, which my master decided to enhance by taking me on excursions. This zoo was much different then, of course. They had built the restaurant and the blue dragon enclosure by the time I took on Lakhri, though. I took him here a few times. And since he is nearly always hungry, I know all about where to procure food."

It wasn't the first time Raven had heard that about Lakhri, and she smiled. She had a feeling that she was going to like him. Besides, he had managed to survive an apprenticeship with Eeth, so Raven already had a high opinion of the man. "Alright. We can watch for blue dragons while we eat. How cool would that be!" The question had been rhetorical, so Raven headed off in the direction Eeth had pointed without waiting for his reply.

"Where else did you take Lakhri?" Raven asked after they had found seats that offered the best view of the dragon's glass enclosure. It really was huge; she couldn't see the top.

"Careenian all-you-can-eat restaurants were among his favourite places, unsurprisingly," Eeth said wryly. "He also liked nature – zoos, botanical gardens, arboretums. He was not as specifically interested in animals as you are."

Again, Raven smiled at the mention of his prestigious appetite. They were opposite in that respect, but she appreciated his dedication. Besides, he had managed to get Eeth to take him to a lot of interesting places by the sounds of it. That thought reminded her of the fateful excursion to Pellebet, and her brow creased a little. "Did Lakhri ever get into serious trouble, like," she paused, "on the chicken releasing level?" It was partially her insecurities; Rayan's comments had lingered despite the fact that he was now long gone.

"He did," Eeth replied curtly. "But I will not tell you potentially embarrassing stories from his youth. I will leave it up to his discretion whether he would like you to know about them. I do hope he will return to the Temple in the foreseeable future." Eeth did, in fact, miss talking to Lakhri. And if he was honest with himself, some advice on how to deal with Raven would not go amiss, or even reassurance as to whether he was doing it right. Eeth would never admit it but he was insecure whether his efforts to raise her towards knighthood were adequate. Lakhri, who had had to suffer his worst side as a junior padawan, would be able to tell if he had managed to improve.

To Raven, it came as somewhat of a relief to hear that Lakhri had found trouble, even if Eeth was loath to give her details. "What's he doing, anyway, and, do you know when he's coming back?" Raven asked. She knew that he was on an extended mission in a stellar system somewhere on the Outer Rim, but that was about it.

"He is part of a team that is working on a long and complicated peace-keeping mission in the Hevelan system and its surroundings," Eeth replied. "The area has been war-torn for nearly a century and conflicts are re-emerging constantly. The Jedi are helping negotiate peace treaties, exposing rings of weapon smugglers, resettling war refugees and so forth. It is a very demanding mission and will probably be going on for several more years. We are occasionally replacing individual team members but we are wary of doing this too frequently because a good knowledge of the system and its languages helps. Lakhri is good with people, and with languages. He has always been." Much better than Eeth, in fact, especially in the people area.

The Hevelan system was not one that Raven was familiar with. His mission, however, sounded positively exciting, and Raven listened with rapt attention. "Several more years, that's a long time before I'll get to meet him," Raven commented, a little disappointed.

"Oh, he will be replaced sooner, I daresay," Eeth replied. "Maybe in a few months' time. I am sure he will be dispatched back to the Temple some time within this year."

Raven wanted to know more about Lakhri, but wasn't sure what to ask. Eventually, when a comfortable, companionable silence had drawn out between them, Raven decided on: "What else is Lakhri good at, and, does he suck at anything? You know, like math?"

"He was rather good at all academic subjects," Eeth replied, "and he excels at languages. He is also very good at everything that requires Force control. He probably needed to acquire that skill early on because of his physical limitations."

Ugh, he sounded positively perfect, and Raven felt more like she had impossible shoes to fill as Eeth's apprentice. The mention of physical limitations was almost missed as she lamented on her own shortcomings. She looked over at Eeth, her expression curious. "Physical limitations? Did he lose an arm or something?" Raven had seen many Jedi missing limbs and the like. The life of a Jedi was dangerous. Despite the best of training, Jedi were not invincible and a lot were injured in the course of their duty.

Eeth suddenly realised that Raven had no idea what Lakhri looked like. But then, how could she? He had never talked about it, nor did he have holo pictures in his common room or anything of that kind. Pushing aside the thought of what his master might have said to that, he said: "He is growth-restricted. Despite being an adult human male, he is not much taller than you. This means that he had to draw on the Force more than others in order to master the art of combat. He also had to deal with a fair amount of teasing and provocations, and had to learn how to deal with them adequately." After a moment's pause, he added a little stiffly: "I could show you a holocube with pictures once we are home. If you are interested."

"I'm interested," Raven replied immediately. She had not seen any holocubes or the like sitting around their quarters. So far, it had never occurred to her to ask why. She simply assumed it was part of Eeth's low-clutter, minimalist approach to decorating. "Is he just short like master Yoda, or is it like a deformity?" This growth restriction further intrigued Raven. Naturally, having been Temple-raised, the padawan was accustomed to all kinds of colourful alien beings, so she was unlikely to be shocked.

"Lakhri has a genetic condition that prevented his arms and legs from growing to their proper length," replied Eeth.

Raven raised her eyebrows. She had heard of such genetic conditions before. They occurred across most species, but she had never actually seen the result. This just made Lakhri all the more interesting to the padawan. She grilled Eeth for a while longer, finding out that Lakhri's hair was curly and sandy brown. His favourite food was Careenian, he had a lot of friends, and he liked reading novels. There was only one more question that Raven was curious about. "Is he as…" She paused, searching for a word that would not offend him. Hard-ass? No! She decided on: "… strict as you are?" Of course, the padawan had her reasons for asking. Having been raised by the strictest master in the Temple meant that Lakhri might have just turned out the same himself, and Raven knew that she would most likely end up in his care occasionally when he returned to the Temple. It was common for former padawans to care for their padawan 'siblings' from time to time.

"I have no idea," said Eeth. "He has not raised a padawan yet, after all. He does have some teaching experience. As far as I know, he was quite a successful teacher. And he certainly does not allow his students to walk all over him. But whether he is particularly strict, I cannot tell you."

The answer was enough to placate Raven; if he wasn't renowned like Eeth, then the odds were favourable that he'd turn out to be more relaxed. While Raven finished off her food, she was skimming a map of the zoo that was built into their tabletop. "Can we go here next?" She pointed to an enclosure that didn't look like much at first glance, but had a section dedicated to jubba birds. Raven had heard of them before and was curious to hear their song.

"Yes, of course," said Eeth, rising from his chair. "As far as I know, they import dragonsnake bog from Dagobah to enable the jubba birds to build nests. They will not breed otherwise. As a result, this zoo is the only place in the galaxy outside Dagobah where they breed."

"It says on the sign that they use the Force to enhance their song. I wonder if they'll react to me? Can I try?" Raven had never connected with an animal that was also Force-sensitive before, but she didn't think it would hurt.

"No," said Eeth. "It can interfere with their Force awareness. You would need to be supervised by someone who is qualified to work with Force-sensitive animals, and that someone is not me. You will receive some training by an expert at some point but only after you have mastered the basics and completed a few mission preparation classes."

"Who gets to decide who teaches me?" Raven wanted to know, climbing on the rail to get a closer look at the strange looking birds. And they really were quite weird-looking with their long, skinny legs and yellow, chicken-like bills.

"I do," said Eeth. "Based on adequate teachers' availability and willingness, of course. Your skill is a relatively rare one. We will not be likely to have many options."

Raven nodded. She had not had many lessons focussing on that as an initiate for similar reasons. Also, her creche master had not deemed it a skill worth focussing on at that stage of her training, as did Eeth.

The rest of their day was spent going from exhibit to exhibit while Raven talked Eeth's ears off about each find. She truly enjoyed their day and was disappointed when it was time to go, not that she complained. Eeth had been more than generous in bringing her here in the first place, and she told him as much on the way back to the Temple. "Thanks for taking me. That was awesome!" The truth was, Raven was now hopeful that she too would get to visit places like this again. He had taken Lakhri, after all.

"You are welcome," replied Eeth. He did like to take his padawans out into the city regularly. First, they needed to gather experience; second, they could learn from it; and third, well, they did seem to enjoy it. Maybe this outing would enable Raven to get through the remaining six days of her grounding, which would take place during term break. That would not exactly make them easier to bear.

Eeth, however, was a master at the art of keeping his padawan busy. He spend several hours per day with her working on a new kata and a related set of offensive moves. He made her complete her essay. And he enrolled her in a three-day intensive diplomacy class that was dedicated to the simulation of treaty negotiations. He was well aware that this was not Raven's favorite subject but it was a mandatory class she had to complete before she would be allowed on missions, so they might as well make good use of the term break.

Thankfully, Raven managed to make it through the week without trouble. Eeth did not exactly think that this deserved a reward but he nevertheless did enrol her, for the second week of term break, for an advanced sparring class that he knew she would enjoy and excel at. Strict though he might be, he was not entirely unfeeling!


	6. Chapter 6

Three months had passed and another term was ending. It had gone largely trouble-free, and, when her grounding had finally ended, included several outings which Raven had enjoyed. It had also been free of zoological excursions due to the fact that Raven had had to take plant physiology instead of zoology. In addition to her academic coursework, she had taken two more basic mission preparation classes: basic survival skills and orientational geography. If she passed them, there was only one more left for her to complete in order to receive first-level mission clearance. Eeth thought that, depending on her exam results, she might take that remaining class during her term break. Intensive courses were often rather effective where practical skills were concerned.

Oblivious to the possibilities the next term break might present, Raven entered the quarters she shared with Eeth, a huge smile that was all teeth on her face. "Master," she greeted him, offering a slight bow as she had done just about every afternoon since having become his apprentice. Yeah, every afternoon barring a few in which she had not been happy with him, that was! Today had been the practical exam for one of her two mission prep classes and the padawan thought that she had done well even though orientational geography was not exactly her favourite subject. It was complex, multi-layered and covered a lot of ground for a single-term course. Most of it was interesting; however, the basic unit on cartography she could have done without. Still, Eeth had been relentless in his efforts to ensure she studied enough, and had helped explain things when he had the time. Her smile said how confident she was about receiving a good grade.

"I take it your exam went well," Eeth said drily. "Are you interested in the results of your maths and basic survival skills exams? They arrived this morning."

Raven had taken the basic survival skills exam on Tuesday, and her maths exam the following day. It was now Thursday, which was quite a long time to wait for results, but the basic survival exam had comprised of both written and practical units. It also enlisted the help of several knights, so it was bound to take longer to assess. She wrinkled her nose; basic survival had been a blast, but maths? She didn't want to know about it… "Let's quit while we're ahead and stick with the basic survival skills?" Raven suggested, sidling up to the comm unit that sat on a desk adjacent their dining room table. She had done well in basic survival skills, and she had done well in today's orientational geography, why sully that with maths? Honestly!

"Padawan, you passed in both," Eeth said, slightly exasperated. He called up the screen with the results and turned it towards Raven, who cringed away like it were sunlight to a vampire.

"Stop that nonsense," said Eeth sternly. "I told you that you passed."

Raven straightened a little at his tone, and risked a glance through splayed fingers.

The message showed that she had received a B+ in the written and a straight A in the practical part of her basic survival skills class. Her maths exam had been graded C+ which was better than Eeth had feared, given Raven's lacklustre approach to the subject.

"An A! Woo Hoo!" Raven jumped up and down a couple of times for emphasis; she was her own personal cheer squad here. The C+ in maths was a lot better than she expected, but it was still not worth a mention when there was an A to overshadow it.

Eeth happened to agree. "Your maths skills will still need improvement," he remarked. "But at least you managed to avoid having to take a remedial class."

A C+ was better than the standard C, or the outright failing grades she had achieved during creche, but Eeth tended to push her harder than her creche master had. Lowfac simply didn't have time to focus on each student in depth. That was the job of their eventual master, which Eeth was doing now, much to Raven's displeasure. "I passed, isn't that good enough?" she complained.

"No," said Eeth. "But it is enough for you to advance. Did they say when the results of today's exam were going to come in?

"Tonight," replied Raven, ignoring his comment on her maths results.

"If you pass that one, I will consider having you do the remaining mission preparation class during term break. That will be hand-to-hand combat. There is an intensive two-week class on offer, starting Monday," said Eeth.

Raven wasn't sure what to make of that. On one hand, if she passed hand to hand combat, she was finally cleared for level one missions! Of course, it would also mean missing out on her entire break period, but Force, it might just be worth it if it meant getting herself clearance, and her expression said as much. "Do I get a choice?"

"No," said Eeth matter-of-factly. As far as he was concerned, Raven was taking classes during her term break anyway. Hand-to-hand would simply be a practical choice, and probably more enjoyable than diplomacy or remedial maths. He would reserve such options for cases of spectacular failure in her exams or similar occurrences that seemed to suggest more study was required.

They went about their usual routine: Lunch, study, a workout, more study, dinner. Just when they started clearing away the dishes, the comm unit beeped, signalling an incoming message.

Raven almost dropped the plate she was holding. "I'll get it!" It was bound to be her results from today's orientational geography exam, after all.

"You may get it when the table is clear," Eeth said firmly.

"What difference will that make?" Raven asked impatiently.

"My point exactly," said Eeth, unperturbed. "The sooner you stop arguing, the sooner you will be able to check your results."

Raven frowned, not entirely placated but seeing no other choice. Bossy.

When the table was cleared, and the dishes stacked away, Raven pounced on their comm unit only to find that the file wouldn't open. "Seriously?" she asked nobody in particular, before noticing that the message was encoded; it required Eeth's comm signature. Apparently, the universe was out to torture her today. "Master, for Force's sake!" She waved her arms around impatiently in the direction of their comm unit.

"Yes, I am coming," said Eeth calmly. He dried his hands and made his way to the comm unit without a hurry, entered his code and opened the file. Without looking at it, he turned the screen towards Raven.

"Well?" he asked.

"Woo hoo! I got a B+!" Raven announced, springing up from where she had been kneeling on the chair and jumping around the room. Academics had never been Raven's strong suit, so anything above a C was cause for celebration in her books. Her grades had, in fact, improved significantly since becoming Eeth's apprentice. She might not like being pushed so hard, but had to admit that at this moment it was worth it.

"Good," said Eeth. He knew she had made an effort and had acquired decent skills at orientational geography. It might not be her favorite subject but she had at least been able to recognise its practical importance. Moreover, Eeth had taken her out into the city several times to practice reading maps, using a compass and other techniques of orientation, which had probably helped with the practical part.

"Since you passed your mission preparation courses," he said, "I will enrol you for hand-to-hand combat during term break. That way, you might have mission clearance by the beginning of next term." Provided that she passed the exam, of course; but he did not really consider it likely that Raven would fail that class. It was all about physical activity, which Raven generally excelled at. He called up the course roster and browsed through it.

"Here it is," he said. "The class will be taught by Master Rool. This will be… interesting."

"Interesting? How so?" Raven asked, now eyeing the page dubiously. Eeth had not used that adjective to describe one of her teachers before.

Master Rool was known to be among the strictest teachers the Temple had to offer. He was also extremely rigid and completely lacked a sense of humour. Much like himself, Eeth had to concede. In any case, Rool was competent, there was no doubt about that. Maybe Raven would make it through his class without a major clash of personalities. Maybe. Out loud, he merely said: "You will have to find out for yourself." He was not going to prejudice Raven against any of her teachers.

"I'll have to find out for myself! What kind of an answer is that?" Now Raven was intrigued, and she planned to ask about this guy at the padawans' lounge that evening. Which was exactly what she did.

Raven sat with a group of friends. Orion, Raven's best friend from creche, and Bindi, a Twi'lek girl she had met on her first day as a padawan, were both here. It was still early yet, so people were slowly trickling in, filling the seats around them. "I've been enrolled in this intensive hand-to-hand combat class over the term break," Raven announced to nobody in particular.

"I've got that one coming up too. My master said I could choose to do it next term, or if I wanted level-one clearance earlier, I could do it over the term break," said Bindi.

Raven's eyes widened and she turned an excited expression on her friend. "Choose the intensive course and we can do it together? How much fun would that be!"

Bindi thought back to the last class she had with Raven, zoology, and had to wonder the same… Still, she liked the girl and they did have fun together. "I could, I suppose. Although I was looking forward to a break."

"Why don't you just do it next term? Where's the fire?" Orion chimed in. He had just obtained mission clearance, having been a padawan a few months longer than Raven.

Raven tutted. "Eeth is the fire. He's a slave driver, you know that."

Orion and Bindi both had to concede to that point. Bindi feigned indecision for a moment, then said: "Alright, let's do it!" Much to Raven's delight.

The problem now was that Raven felt reluctant to bring up Eeth's comments on master Rool. Well, Bindi deserved to know what she was getting herself in to. Raven blew out a sigh. "Eeth enrolled me this afternoon. It's Monday to Friday 9am–1pm for two weeks, with Master Rool."

"Master Rool?" Orion exclaimed. "Force. Bindi, you should reconsider. Raven… you've already been enrolled? Run. Pretend to be sick. If that won't work on Eeth, sprain your ankle or something. Rool is the scariest guy in existence, and that includes your master."

Raven raised her eyebrows, an expression of slight disbelief on her face, whereas Bindi was staring at Orion like he had turned into a giant knobby white. Of course, Raven wasn't scared of anything; she was brave. Besides, nobody could outshine Eeth in that department, and she had lived to tell the tale so far. How bad could he be? Raven was about to ask when Bindi beat her to it.

"What did he do to give you that opinion?" Bindi asked when she had found her voice. She didn't want to renege on Raven just because of some scary teacher. But still…

"Fortunately, I've only experienced him as a substitute teacher in my hand-to-hand lessons, when Knight Mchatak was called on a mission," Orion said. "First thing he did was to cane a student who had continued talking when he had started the lesson. I mean… he carries a freakin' cane to his classes!"

Bindy blinked, continuing to stare. "He carries a what now…" But the question was rhetorical, and she dry-washed her face with her hand. She had been fortunate enough to have avoided that experience. Then again, Bindy was not the personality to find trouble. At least not often, and not of the serious kind.

Raven, on the other hand: trouble seemed to follow her around. Still, she was good at the physical aspects of her training, excelled even. This class was going to be a walk in the park. She looked at her Twi'lek friend and smiled. "Don't worry about it. I can manage alone. You worked hard this term, too, and shouldn't have to suffer just because my master is a hard-ass." It was true, too: the last thing Raven wanted was to drag Bindy into something that she was going to hate.

Bindy groaned, leaned back in her chair and gave Raven a pointed look; she might be a little soft around the edges, but she had a strong sense of loyalty to her friends. "Of course I'll do the class with you. It's not like he can kill us." The statement carried a hint of question.

"Well, I haven't heard of that happening," Orion said. He tried to sound comforting but could not quite conceal the edge of scepticism to his voice.

Thankfully, a padawan who had been on a two-week mission chose that moment to sit down, and everyone was fast engrossed in her tale.

That evening Raven returned to their quarters, right on time. "Master Rool is a tyrant. You might have told me," she said loud enough to be heard from where she sat under the door comm, pulling off her boots.

"Have the other padawans been telling you stories?" Eeth said mildly, not looking up from the report he was reading. "He is known to be strict. So am I. You have, so far, survived me and I daresay you will survive master Rool. Just do as he says, preferably without arguing, and you will be fine."

"Telling stories? I wouldn't say they were stories, they sounded more like warnings and outright fear for my life." Raven pulled off the last boot, falling into the wall with the effort. She put them neatly next to Eeth's and stood. "He carries a cane around with him. Seriously, not even you go that far." It was true, Eeth kept his in a cupboard although some might argue that, despite his choice of implement, carrying a paddle around with him was just as bad.

"He does," acknowledged Eeth. "Although it is nowhere near as long and thick as the one I use."

"Is that supposed to make me feel any better?"

"No," said Eeth matter-of-factly. "Just a piece of advice. Simply do not get into trouble and you will not have to make its acquaintance."

"According to Orion, he doesn't need much of an excuse," Raven griped. The truth was, she wasn't really scared at all. Most of the time the padawan could concede that if she got into trouble, punishment of one form or another would follow; if you're stupid enough to get caught, and all. Still, she wanted to make Eeth feel a bit bad for not having told her about this himself. "You might have told me, is all." Raven sat in the chair opposite and pulled her comlink from her pocket, tossing it onto the table. Then, she poured herself a cup of Eeth's stinky tea. Yep, it was gross.

"I did not want to prejudice you," Eeth said calmly, looking at her. "Moreover, there was no point in making you feel apprehensive about these lessons. Master Rool is a highly competent teacher and his expectations are not unreasonable. He does not look for excuses to cane students, he canes them when they give him reason to. If you obey him, behave respectfully and apply yourself, he will have no reason to punish you. But the same is true for any teacher."

He laid aside his datapad. "Time for our evening meditation," he said.

Raven could argue that, but she didn't. Instead, she rose from her chair, stretched and tried to put thoughts of tyrannical hand-to-hand instructors from her mind.

Forty-five minutes later, Eeth was tucking her in, but Raven wasn't ready to sleep.

"When I pass hand-to-hand" – it was a 'when' and not an 'if' in Raven's opinion – "how long before we get assigned a mission?" Raven asked.

Eeth recognised her tone as one that indicated she was wide awake and not particularly inclined to sleep. He was not going to indulge her for long; she had a Basic exam the next morning. But he knew that some questions were pressing on junior padawans and the mission question was one of them. Thus, he sat at the edge of her bed and took the time to reply.

"Probably not too long," he answered. "Some time during the next cycle of classes, most likely. I will volunteer our service if something suitable comes along. Level one missions are required to be perfectly safe and of limited duration so they mostly involve negotiations or diplomacy. I will make sure your first mission will be slightly more interesting than a conference. It will probably not be vastly more interesting, though. Only slightly so."

Raven secretly hoped that 'perfectly safe' didn't equate to perfectly boring! But she had a feeling that despite Eeth's efforts, it just might. She said nothing of her thoughts, though, because any mission was better than no mission at all, right? Right! 'Not very long' must mean that the planet involved couldn't be far away, either. Who knew, maybe their mission would take them somewhere fun like the Akahiret cliffs! It could happen. Raven was still kind of dark over missing out on that field trip for her zoology class last term.

"What was your first mission about, and where did you go?" Raven sat up in her bed, her eyes wide with interest.

"We were sent to escort the Senators of a system that had newly joint the Republic to their first Senate session," replied Eeth. "Completely pointless. They did not need an escort. It was purely ceremonial." He could remember what he huge waste of his abilities he had considered it, at the time. Nevertheless, he had had to concede that someone had to do it, and therefore, he had done it with good grace - or what counted for 'good grace' in him, at that age, because 'charming' was not an attribute that anyone would ever have dreamt of associating with him.

"They sent Jedi for the sole purpose of ceremony. What a complete waste of a Jedi team. Why didn't they get someone else, why did they need Jedi?" Raven sat up a bit taller, her feet tucked under herself. "Were there assassination attempts?" Assassination attempts sounded like something more Jedi-like.

"They would not have sent my master and me if that had been likely," Eeth replied drily. "It would not have been a first-level mission in that case. The Jedi are representatives of the Republic, and as such, their presence is required for a number of diplomatic and ceremonial occasions, unfortunately. In our case, it was part of the membership agreement the planetary system had concluded with the Republic. Nothing to be done about it. If such a thing happens to you, you will just have to consider it an opportunity to acquire off-planet experience."

He straightened her bedcover and rose. "Now sleep," he said. "Will you need help with that? You have your last exam coming up tomorrow and I want you to be well-rested for that."

"I can think of better ways of acquiring off-planet experience. Field trips spring to mind." That thought prompted another, and ignoring Eeth's attempts to get her to sleep, she asked: "What would you do if the Council gave us a mission and I was grounded? You wouldn't leave me behind, right?"

"Padawan, I am part of the Council," Eeth replied wryly. "I would simply not assign us a mission while you were grounded. I asked you if you need help going to sleep and you have not answered my question."

"But what if it were an emergency?" Raven pressed, sitting up a little higher. "An emergency that only you and I are skilled enough to complete."

"In the unlikely event of that happening," Eeth replied severely, "rest assured that I will find a solution for this rather hypothetical problem. And you still have not answered my question. I take it that you will need a sleep compulsion to settle down."

Raven huffed. She had probably stalled for about as long as possible without actually annoying her master to the point of no return. She was still learning how to walk that line, as it was a very, very fine line to walk with Eeth. "I could use the help, thanks." Raven would never knock back a sleep compulsion; her mind was constantly running a mile a minute and she found it very hard to switch off. Today had been exciting, with new challenges ahead, and her brain was in overdrive.

Eeth nodded and knelt down next to her bed. He lightly rested his hand on her forehead. Three minutes later, Raven was fast asleep.

* * *

That weekend, Raven spent enjoying time off classes and not having to study. She visited her friends, worked out, and of course, completed her duties, but it was mostly relaxing in preparation for the two weeks of hand-to-hand that Eeth had enrolled her in over the term break. At least she would have her friend, Bindi, with her. That would make what was already going to be a fun class even better! Well, fun all except for their instructor, Master Rool. He was someone most padawans she spoke to over that weekend advised her not to antagonise. The stories had all been of the same theme: don't tick him off and be sure to do as you're told. Well, Raven could live with that. She had Eeth as a master, after all.

Sunday evening, the padawan entered their quarters an hour early. Given that it was term break for two weeks, most padawans with clearance had been assigned missions or the like, which left the padawans' lounge mostly empty. Even Bindi had been busy tonight, her master having taken her into Coruscant.

"Good evening, padawan," Eeth said, looking up from where he was polishing his boots. He had been busy with chores around the house for the past hour. "You are home early."

"Everyone was busy," replied Raven, moving to their dining room table where Eeth was polishing his boots to pull off her own. "Well, except for me, I guess," was added as she slumped into the chair opposite him. She pulled off a boot and tossed it to the floor, and then the next, giving it the same treatment.

"Put your boots away properly, please," Eeth said, predictably. "Or better yet, clean them."

Raven picked up the tin of boot polish from the table and turned it over in her hand. Yes, that had been a predictable response. She stood, tin in hand, and found another rag.

Twenty minutes later Raven was on her second boot, her arm shoved down the middle as she polished the outer surface to a shine. It was an art to do this without getting polish on the buckles, or worse, up your tunic sleeves, but Raven had learned by watching Eeth over the last six months.

Eeth, in the meanwhile, had put away his boots and placed a jug of water and a bowl of spiced nuts onto the table.

"When you are finished, you may watch the holo for half an hour," he said, knowing that this was Raven's favorite pastime in the evenings when she was not meeting other padawans. "After that, we will perform our evening meditation. Your hand-to-hand class starts tomorrow, and you will need your sleep for that."

Raven loved holo, so when Eeth made the offer, she was fast to finish off her boots.

The half hour was spent engrossed in a documentary on the bristle-backed boar wolves that lived on Endor. They were fearsome, scary even, not that Raven would ever admit to thinking the latter. She was brave and this sort of thing was not something an aspiring Jedi Knight would be scared of. Besides, she could influence these … she was pretty sure.

When Raven's time was up, Eeth came up behind her and turned the holo off with a wave of his hand, causing Raven to almost jump off the couch.

"Time for evening meditation," Eeth said, unfazed.

Raven was on her feet in a heartbeat, brushing invisible lint from her tunic to cover the fact that Eeth had just scared the bejesus out of her. Raven wasn't scared of anything.

The edges of Eeth's mouth quirked slightly in amusement but he did not comment. He merely led them through their usual evening routine. Forty minutes later, Raven was in bed.

* * *

One minute Raven was sleeping in her bed, and the next she was in the middle of a rainforest. How the Force had she gotten here? Well, one thing was for certain, Raven needed to get back to the Temple; Eeth would be worried! A hand immediately went to her lightsaber. Good: whatever had brought her here had transported her fully dressed and lightsaber intact. Small mercies. She used the Force to jump into the safety of the canopy. Raven honestly had no idea where this place was, let alone how to get back to the Temple. She reached out through the Force, attempting to contact Eeth, but could feel nothing. Perhaps he was too far away? Well, she would just have to do this on her own. It was at that moment Raven realised that, despite not being able to reach Eeth, the Force was strong on this planet. Below, a large herd of what looked like Ikopi were stampeding through the undergrowth. It was then that the padawan caught sight of a harness; these animals were domesticated, not wild. That was good! It meant there were sentient beings around here somewhere, and a hope for her to get back to Coruscant.

Excited at the prospect of getting home, Raven dropped onto a branch just high enough to avoid being trampled, but low enough to be seen. It was quite a spectacle. Unfortunately, what had the herd running was not a helpful farmer willing to offer her passage out of this crazy place, but a trio of boar wolf. And her problems did not end there as the branch she had been standing on snapped, dumping her on the ground. Raven only just managed to jump aside to avoid being taken out by the pack leader. Lightsaber drawn, but not yet engaged, the padawan was now running from two dangers; being eaten, and being trampled to death. Neither were a dignified end to her career! There was a clearing ahead with an enormous tree growing in the middle. Raven recognised the tree as an ancient uneti; the same tree that grew in the heart of the Jedi Temple. Its tall, Force-sensitive branches would be the ideal place to find safety and regroup. If only she could reach it, because the faster she ran, the further away the clearing with her tree became. What sort of place was this! Out of options, Raven was forced to reserve her energy for a fight, and sure enough, when she turned, three of the meanest-looking boar wolves she had ever seen were right behind her. Their movements were slow and calculated. With each step Raven took in retreat, they advanced two more, and then they made their move. Raven reached out with the Force in an effort to compel them. She was good at doing this with bugs, but apparently that did not work so well on enraged boar wolves, not to mention when her mind was not completely focused on the task. There was no other choice but to kill in order to avoid being killed. The problem with that was that each time her lightsaber connected with its target, the blade turned into green specks of sand! "Master! Help!" Raven screamed, as she was thrown onto her back, the boar wolf standing over her. She could feel hot, damp breath blowing against her face in huffs. "MASTER!" she screamed again, just as massive jaws clamped around her throat.

Eeth was out of his bed and in Raven's room in an instant as he heard the scream. He dropped to his knees beside her bed and gently but firmly took hold of her shoulders.

"Padawan, wake up," he said quietly but insistently. "Wake up. It is only a dream."

Raven was still screaming for Eeth as her eyes opened. Much to her relief, instead of cold, black eyes, acrid breath and crushing jaws, she was met with the sight of Eeth's face. It had been a dream. She had thought that planet was a bit too weird. "Master! You saved me," she told him and without thought, she wrapped her arms around his neck. She was sweaty and tangled in her bed sheets, but she didn't care because at least she was alive.

"Padawan, it was just a nightmare," Eeth said softly, returning the hug a little awkwardly but sincerely. He had been plagued by nightmares throughout his childhood and youth and knew how horrible that experience could be. He could sympathise with Raven's terror.

Raven didn't say anything for several minutes, partly because she was embarrassed to have lost her shit over a dream, and partly because she was enjoying the comfort Eeth offered. It was due to the former that she didn't immediately start regaling him with her terror. It was ridiculous. Disappearing trees, lightsabers made of coloured sand. Honestly! The padawan cringed, but finally released the death-grip she had around his neck and leaned back into her pillow. "Boar wolves," she confessed, as if the two words explained everything.

"Hmm," said Eeth. "Maybe you should stop watching holo channels right before going to bed, then."

"Aw, master, don't be like that," Raven whined, swiping a hand across her forehead and kicking her legs free from the tangle of sheets. Apparently, she had been fighting just as hard in reality as in the dream itself. "I wasn't really scared," she lied, coughing once and pulling the covers up around her neck. "My lightsaber turned into sand is all. How am I meant to fight with that?" It wasn't really a question, but she wasn't sure what else to say, and didn't want Eeth to go just yet.

"Of course you were scared," Eeth said drily. "That is the definition of a nightmare. And why else would you have been screaming for me? Anyway, we will discuss this some other time. Not right now when you need to sleep. Let us meditate for a few minutes. You are all worked up."

"Screaming … Uh." Force, she had done that out loud? Ugh, no! The padawan cringed again; Eeth was going to think she was a baby. "It's okay, I don't need to meditate. I'm not a youngling." Neither or which were true, but Raven had her padawanly pride to peserve here.

"Nonsense," said Eeth sternly. "You are eleven years old. More importantly, you had a nightmare that gave you quite a fright and meditation will help. Your age really has no bearing on this. Grown-up Jedi have nightmares. I have had frequent nightmares myself until I was far older than you are. We will meditate now, and if you still have trouble going back to sleep after that, I will help you along."

"What did you have nightmares about?" Raven asked while sitting up and crossing her legs beneath her so they could meditate. As far as she was concerned, Eeth was invincible and not afraid of anything. What could possibly have given him nightmares?

"Nothing noteworthy," Eeth replied curtly while rising to sit at the edge of Raven's bed. "People wanting to kill me. That kind of thing." He took Raven's hand, closed his eyes and linked with her, cutting the talk short. The content of his nightmares was really, really not something he was keen on discussing. Raven, he reasoned, need not be burdened with the knowledge of his childhood among deathstick addicts, gangs, and crime lords. No, definitely not.

Nothing noteworthy? Raven found that hard to believe. Eeth wouldn't be scared of people trying to kill him; it came with the job, after all. Frowning, she closed her eyes. Sure, Raven really wanted to push for an honest answer, or at least a more honest answer than he had given, but she had enough social intelligence to let it rest. For now.

When they had completed their meditation and Eeth made to stand, Raven grabbed his tunic sleeve. "Could you leave my refresher light on," she whispered, her cheeks flushing pink. She hoped the dim lighting would hide it and that he wouldn't notice.

"Of course, padawan," Eeth said calmly as if this was the most ordinary request in the world. He laid his hand onto her forehead and sent her a light sleep compulsion that would allow her to fall asleep quickly and prevent dreams for at least the next couple of hours.

The next thing Raven knew there was a blinding light, only this time she wasn't on Endor facing off against boar wolves. This time it was far, far worse. She squinted, trying to focus on the familiar silhouette in her doorway. Yep, worse!

"UGH! I think it's only fair to warn you that I heard that there is a significant correlation between Jedi masters who get up too early and their likelihood of turning to the Dark Side," the padawan griped, pulling the pillow over her head.

"I very much doubt that," Eeth replied levelly. "It is normally not an overabundance of self-discipline that makes Jedi turn to the Dark Side. Now get up. It is Monday morning, and you have your hand-to-hand combat class to attend. Master Rool does not take kindly to students who arrive late."

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger. It was a double blind study, so nobody knew what the Force was going on." Raven was glad for the pillow over her face which hid her smile. She did enjoy teasing him.

Twenty minutes later, the padawan appeared from her bedroom, dressed in her workout uniform. She was ready for this. It was going to be fun and she was going to own this class. The expression on her face said as much as she met Eeth emerging from their kitchen. "Want help?"

"You might finish toasting bread," Eeth replied as he strained the tea. A little while later, they were sitting down to have breakfast.

"You seem to be looking forward to this class," remarked Eeth.

"It's hand-to-hand, what's not to love? Of course, I could do without Master Rool given that I've heard nothing but 'run' and 'fake blue pox' since I mentioned being enrolled. I feel a bit bad for suggesting Bindi give up her term break." Raven took a bite of her toast, silent for a minute. "Incidentally, will I ever get a term break that is not full of classes?"

"If we have a mission, a field trip or an internship for you during that time, maybe," Eeth replied, unmoved. "At least you will have no homework for the next two weeks."

"That still sounds a lot like work to me," Raven complained. She met him with a serious expression, and pointed her toast at him. "Do you know what it means to have a term break? The operative word there being 'break'."

"It means you do not have regular classes, which gives you time for other useful things," Eeth replied calmly. Of course he was perfectly aware of what Raven was getting at. After all, Lakhri had expressed similar complaints more than once. But Eeth was definitely not going to start taking his padawans on vacations or allowing them to otherwise waste their time!

Raven snorted. "I thought the Republic had laws against slavery. Apparently, nobody informed you of these."

Eeth raised his eyebrows. "And what would YOU know of slavery?" he asked quietly, in a tone of voice that suggested that he did, in fact, know quite a bit of slavery and that it was no laughing matter.

"That they don't get term breaks either. We are brothers in arms," she huffed, finishing off her toast.

"I will see to it that you gain some real-life experience with slavery, a few years from now, when you are cleared for such missions," Eeth said coolly. "I think that will effectively cure you of such notions."

There was a lot Raven could say to that, but she considered his tone and simply inclined her head instead. They finished breakfast in comfortable silence.

Eeth finally ushered her out of the door. He did not think that Raven had anything to be worried about, given that she was used to his own standards. Still, he doubted that Master Rool would fail to leave a strong impression on his padawan. He was also certain that she would learn a lot in that class. Lakhri had actually opted to take an advanced hand-to-hand combat class with Master Rool around age sixteen because his short arms and legs had given him a significant disadvantage in that area and he had not been confident in his skills. He had returned home every day complaining bitterly about his drill-sergeant of a teacher but had acknowledged, at the end of the cycle, that the man had really helped him get the most out of what his body was capable of. Since Raven excelled at any kind of physical activity, she would doubtless take home a lot from Master Rool's class, too.

Thanks to Eeth practically shoving her out the door, Raven arrived at the gym room allocated to Rool's class with time to spare. There were about four others here, but Bindi had yet to show up. Maybe she had decided not to do the class after all? Force, Raven wouldn't blame her, especially as they had both been regaled with nothing but horror stories from the padawans' lounge all weekend.

Bindi did indeed show up just a few minutes before the class was meant to start. She was puffing, clearly having had to run to make it. "No way I was showing up late."

"I don't blame you," Raven replied honestly.

As expected, the others had heard of, and been warned about, Rool's reputation also. So it was hardly surprising that this was what the seven padawans gathered were talking about when the gym door opened.

The Arconan master made his way to the centre of the room in swift strides, standing before the group and looking down at them. He looked as imposing as an Arconan could possibly look: two meters tall, ebony-black skin, glowing emerald-green eyes and a stern look on his triangular face.

"We are one student short," he said silkily. "No matter. We will start now. Line up." He produced a datapad from the pocket of his tunic and pointed the cane which he had been carrying in his left hand at Bindi who had managed to end up to the right of the line. "Name?"

He was halfway through the roll call when an Iktotchi boy sidled into the room. Rool turned around slowly and fixed him with an unrelenting look. In fact, his unwavering look and seemingly stern eyes were mostly a product of his poor reptilian eyesight but to humans, they looked downright scary.

"I apologise for being late," the boy said quickly, as politely and reverently as he possibly could. "It will not happen again."

"No, it most certainly will not," growled Rool. He marched over to the hapless boy, unceremoniously bent him over, tucked him under his right arm and brought the cane down onto his bottom half a dozen times with vigour. Obviously, he was left-handed. By the time he was done, the boy was positively howling.

"Any further reminders will be given on the bare," said Rool, unmoved, as he released his hold on the latecomer. "That goes for everyone in this class. Your name?"

"Teesaee Niit," the boy brought out while gingerly trying to rub his bottom with one hand and swiping a few stray tears from his face with the other. Rool nodded curtly and turned back towards the rest of the class to complete the roll call.

Had everyone in the room not been forewarned, there might have been a lot of shocked expressions. As it was, however, the class reaction ranged from sympathetic, to cringing, to resignation. Raven was among the latter. She stood tall and said nothing, just as she would if this were her own master. Eeth had been right; the cane Rool carried was not as thick or long as the one he kept in his cupboard. That said, if Teesaee's reaction was anything at all to go by, he knew how to make up for that minor shortcoming.

Bindi was amongst those who cringed. She felt for the boy, really she did! She wasn't unaccustomed to discipline, but nor did she often find herself on the receiving end of it.

Nobody said a word, not even coughed, as Rool finished marking down attendance.

Rool pointed his cane at a random student, which happened to be Raven. "You," he said. "Lead the class through a warm-up. And make it thorough. The rest of you, don't worry. It will be your turn soon enough."

Rool was not the first instructor to request this, nor was Raven unsure of what to do; she was apprenticed to Eeth, after all. Thus, Raven gave a curt nod, moved to the front of the class and announced: "Star jumps," much to Teesaee's displeasure. Well, he was going to be smarting for an hour at the very least after his entrance, so it didn't really matter what Raven chose; it was not going to be comfortable for him. Soon all eight padawans were jumping around on the spot. She lead them around the gym in a slow jog which turned into side steps facing in and out and ended in high knees and ankle tapping. Suffice it to say that when everyone returned to their places for a light stretch, the class was well and truly warmed up. Nobody dared complain about the warm-up; it might have been more intense than some were used to, but after seeing how Rool had reacted to Teesaee, yeah, nobody dared complain about it. Raven, for her part, was simply doing what Eeth led her through every day. Of course it was intense, but that was how she liked it.

Rool was satisfied with the warm-up Raven had provided. Some youngsters tended to go too easy on the class but Raven was not one of them. Well, she was apprenticed to Eeth Koth; it would stand to reason that she'd know how to have a proper workout.

"Good job," he said curtly. Then he called up a Twi'lek boy and used him to demonstrate the first move he was teaching. When he was confident the class had understood the move, he divided them up into pairs to practice, taking care to split up those who seemed to be friends. He did not want anyone to be distracted and disrupt the class by chattering. Raven ended up with Teesaee Niit.

Unfortunately for Teesaee, the technique Rool had them practicing resulted in the person attacking on their backside. "Oof!" he complained, frowning. Raven hadn't thrown him any harder than she was meant to, but his ass still hurt and this was not helping any.

"Sorry," Raven sympathised and offered him a hand up. Luckily, their instructions were to alternate between attack and defence so at least Teesaee was going to get a break, however short.

"Yeah, well, it's not you I'm blam–" Teesaee made to say. But as he caught a pointed look from master Rool, he cut himself short, shrugging apologetically. Not that Rool seemed to have much interest in apologies!

Raven had caught the exchange; this guy really was a hard-ass.

When they had each practiced and demonstrated the technique to Rool's high standards (this took some time!), they had a ten-minute break and moved on to the next. Raven was really quite confident by the end of that class. She had managed to pick up the moves faster than the others and was definitely the best in the class at the techniques they had practiced today. Eeth was going down when they trained this afternoon! Well, the padawan was going to do her best.

"I see you survived your class," Eeth remarked drily as Raven returned to their quarters a little after 1pm. He was sitting at the dining table, mending a loose seam at his utility belt by way of a thick leather needle. He liked doing things like that by himself. It gave him a sense of independence and it had, indeed, helped him acquire a number of skills that had been enormously useful during missions.

"I did," she replied, sitting beneath their door comm to pull off her boots. "Although some of the others weren't so lucky. He's entirely unreasonable! He walloped one kid with that blasted cane he carries around before the class had even started!" Raven was reluctant to say why, exactly, Teesaee had gotten into trouble, because she doubted Eeth would sympathise. So, she kept on talking. "He whacked one girl for not paying attention." Granted, it was once but it still looked like it hurt. "Then, he did the same to two others later. Tyrant." Raven stood, one sock half off, and noticed for the first time that Eeth was sewing. Well, better him than me, she thought and sat into the chair opposite him with a thump.

"I suppose they gave him reason to," Eeth said neutrally. "Apparently, you did not. Good for you. Did you learn something?"

"They didn't give him much reason," Raven griped, far from placated. "Everyone else was too scared to breathe." That was probably not far from the truth either, from her point of view.

"So did you or did you not learn something?" Eeth asked, unperturbed.

Raven huffed at his lack of sympathy. "Don't you care that I have to take a class with a cane-wielding maniac? It is your fault, you enrolled me."

"I care about your competence at hand-to-hand combat, in view of our upcoming missions," Eeth replied stoically, refusing categorically to enter a discussion about how terrible Master Rool was. "Has it improved, yes or no?"

Fine, if Eeth wanted to be like that. Raven adopted an expression that he would recognise as stubborn refusal. Her jaw squared, her chin came up and her arms crossed tightly about her chest. She outright refused to enter a discussion about how her skills had improved despite having to go through torture to achieve it. Especially when she was receiving zero understanding or even a hint of sympathy from Eeth!

Eeth placed the needle on the table and straightened up to look at her. "Padawan, I asked you a question," he said. "Three times, in fact. I do not appreciate having to repeat myself. Do you particularly want me to _force_ you to give an answer?"

She did not, but nor did Raven want to give in; this was a battle of wills now. Still, what choices was Eeth giving her here? Not very good ones! Thus, she grudgingly said: "No, master." Her arms flopped to her sides and her gaze lowered. "Yes, it's improved." Having to admit that had been like pulling teeth, as it felt like she was validating Rool's methods! She folded her arms again, but loosely this time, and pouted at the table. Eeth might not be the only strict master in the Temple, but he was most definitely the most unsympathetic.

Eeth could live with that assessment. "That is good to hear," he said, rising from his chair. "As for Master Rool's cane, you seem to have successfully avoided it. So apparently, it has fulfilled its purpose. Come on. We will go to the dining hall for lunch."

It was the beginning of term break, so the hall was not crowded. In fact, the Temple was quieter than usual thanks to a number of junior master and padawan teams having gone off to complete some mission or another. Eeth was unfazed, but Raven kind of missed the crowded dining halls, and of course, the packed padawans' lounge of an evening. Well, it was only for two weeks.


	7. Chapter 7

"When you are done cleaning your room, you may mop out your refresher!" called Eeth to Raven from where he was dusting shelves in the common room. It was Friday afternoon, the first week of term break, and he had decided they needed to clean their quarters.

"And then I might flick moss from the balcony ledge with a toothpick and pick lint off the couch with tweezers, I suppose?" Raven shot back at him from her bedroom.

"I have already done the couch," Eeth replied stoically. "But cleaning the balcony ledge is an excellent suggestion. You may get to it when you are done with your refresher." Eeth's tolerance for sarcasm was rather limited. His first padawan, Lakhri, had soon learned to avoid remarks along the lines of "Do you maybe want me to sweep the floor and clean the windows, too, oh grand exalted master?" because they were a surefire way of ending up doing these exact tasks.

Raven launched a ball of dirty socks into her refresher at hearing that response. It hit the shower glass with emphasis, and slid down onto the floor. It missed the dirty clothing basket altogether, too, just to further irritate her. This week had been tough on Raven. The hand-to-hand combat class with master Rool was testing her patience as much as it was enjoyable! She had thus far avoided any run-ins with his harsher side, but that didn't prevent her from griping about how rigorous, unforgiving and quick to unnecessarily use his cane he was.

When she emerged from her bedroom fifteen minutes later, she was still brooding. "Did you use tweezers to clean that couch?" she wanted to know, crossing her arms about her chest and knowing this was a battle she was destined to lose. Raven didn't care.

"No, but if you are that concerned with the state of it, feel free to," Eeth replied, a hint of warning in his tone.

"Lazy," she commented, her nose in the air, and went to the balcony to clean the ledge.

Eeth ignored her. Just.

Raven did an acceptable job at scraping the moss from their balcony ledge. After all, she knew that Eeth would only make her do it again if she didn't. Then, she watered the few plants they had out there for good measure. Given that they had already had lunch and she knew sitting in front of the holo would result in it being turned off, Raven found Eeth again. "Anything else you'd like done?" This time it was sans sarcastic suggestions, as much as she wanted to utter them.

"No," said Eeth, looking up from where he was scrubbing the countertop. "You are free for the rest of the day. I am scheduled for a mission debriefing in half an hour but will be back in time for dinner. If you prefer to have dinner with friends instead, you may. Just leave me a note if you do. Oh, and one other thing. Tomorrow, I will have to go into Coruscant to talk to a few arms dealers and make some inquiries. You may join me if you want to. It might be boring, though. Think about it and make up your mind by tomorrow morning."

"Think about it?" Was he crazy? "Of course I want to go. I don't need to think about it." Raven was on him like white on rice. "Where in Coruscant? What inquiries are you making? Why are you making them? Who is sending you to make them?" Raven wanted to know all of this and more.

"The Argonian sector," said Eeth. "A seedy area. I want to talk to at least one, possibly several arms dealers for an inquire I am making on behalf of the Council. I want to get an impression of the availability of certain types of weapons that are still legal and some that are illegal."

"Wait, so, we're going to some seedy area in the Argonian sector, to talk about availability of certain weapons, and … the Council is sending us to do this?" Raven tried to clarify, no less enthused.

"No," said Eeth. "The Council is sending ME to do this. You may accompany me on the condition that you stay in the background and do as you are told."

"I stay in the background and do as I'm told." Raven shrugged. "So what's new." The idea of going into the city to do anything would have her excited, but going into the city in an official capacity! Now that was downright thrilling to the padawan.

"Nothing," said Eeth with a small smile. "We had better wear civilian clothes. It is not exactly a top-secret undercover mission but it will still be an advantage not to be recognised as Jedi immediately." When Raven had become his padawan and they had shopped for her uniform, they had acquired two sets of non-descript civilian clothing for such occasions. Since the girl had not exactly grown a lot in the past months, they would still do.

* * *

And they did… The following morning Raven emerged from her bedroom dressed in the green pair of sturdy cargo pants, a black t-shirt and a jacket that Eeth had acquired for her on her first day as a padawan. Her hair had been left out and padawan braid untied, given that they were trying to avoid being recognised as Jedi. She approached Eeth who was exiting his bedroom and gave a slight bow. "Morning, master. Can we get breakfast on the way?" Raven asked hopefully. She was also impatient to leave the Temple, as always.

Eeth raised his eyebrows. "We are not leaving until eleven," he said. "The arms dealers are still in bed, I imagine. We may have lunch outside, though, and possibly dinner, depending on how the day goes."

"I guess I forgot that most normal people don't get up at the ass-crack of dawn every day," Raven remarked, a very small smile tugging at the corner of her lip. She had been Eeth's apprentice for six months now, and had all but forgotten what it was like to sleep in.

"'Normal people' also do not start their day with meditation or have workouts right after breakfast," replied Eeth. "Which is what we will do."

As he had promised, by eleven, they were sitting in a speeder leaving the Temple.

"It will take us about forty-five minutes to reach the Argonian sector," Eeth informed Raven.

Raven nodded. It had crossed her mind to ask Eeth if she could fly, but so far that had always resulted in the same, predictable response, namely, no!

They had not gone far from the Temple, perhaps only five minutes or so, when a ball of flames sped by beneath them, leaving a trail of gas and fire like some sort of out-of-control comet. "Master, you've got to see this! There's a cruiser on fire below us," Raven said, narrowly ducking her head back in to miss a passing taxi, before leaning back out to look. Raven had never seen anything like this before; it was like something out of a holo.

"Padawan!" Eeth snapped. "Keep your head inside or I will turn around and drop you off at the Temple right away! Just how old are you? Has your creche master never taught you about traffic safety?"

"Eleven," Raven replied unnecessarily, rolling her eyes. "Don't freak out, it missed me by miles." Still, Raven sat back inside the speeder so as not to tick him off and tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to watch the commotion from her seat.

"I am not 'freaking out', I am trying to prevent you from killing yourself," Eeth said sternly. "If that is the way you behave in traffic, I think piloting lessons will still have to wait for a while."

"Sounds a lot like freaking out to me," Raven grumbled quietly. She hoped his threat about putting off flying lessons was an empty one, because if there was one thing the padawan looked forward to as much as building her first lightsaber, it was piloting!

Eeth privately thought that for the moment, there was way too much excitement involved in Raven's attitude towards flying. Besides, she was underage to do so in Coruscant and virtually all other places they were likely to visit for several years to come. He would prefer for her to gain a little more experience and maturity before taking flying lessons.

"Watch your attitude, padawan," he said coolly.

Raven wanted badly to retort, but could see from the look on his face that it could be a bad decision. "Yes, master," she replied, now sitting almost backwards in her seat as she watched the flaming mass skid to a crashing halt below them.

Eeth entered a different lane, the speeder carrying them away from the scene within seconds. Finally, he took them into a lower strata of Coruscant and decided to park the speeder in a garage at the outskirts of the Argonian sector. This would require them to take a public shuttle to the area where most arms dealers were located but it was a fairly safe option. He took Raven out of the garage and to a covered shuttle station from which a dazzling number of vehicles was departing almost every second.

"Shuttle number 6099 to Garren Street," he told Raven. "Somewhere over there, I think." He pointed to their right.

Raven looked up at Eeth, and then in the direction he had pointed. Finding shuttle number 6099 amongst the plethora of shuttles coming and going! Ugh, that was going to be a challenge. Well, apparently Eeth was leaving this task to her, so after Raven had watched carefully for five or so minutes, they were on their way.

The shuttle was crowded with many species that Raven had not seen outside of holos, but she did not stare. The smell, though, was something else. A mixture of different body odours had Raven wrinkling her nose without even realising she was doing it. Suffice it to say that by the time they reached Garren Street, the padawan was eager to get out into Coruscant's not so fresh air.

Eeth led Raven to a shop that looked very small from the outside but stretched across two blocks and several levels on the inside. He walked around, inspected the merchandise and entered into a lengthy discussion with a salesperson about the availability and pricing of plasma blasters. He repeated the process on the lowest level where he pretended to be interested in photonic missiles. It took him a good hour before they could leave the store.

"That was bigger than I expected," Raven commented when they exited back onto the street. She had followed along and mostly kept quiet, the odd question about something she didn't recognise notwithstanding. Eeth had been correct, though, Raven found all the waiting around and not being able to do much else incredibly boring! On the plus side, it was just after noon which meant that Eeth would have to allow them to stop for lunch sooner or later. Raven hoped it was sooner!

Eeth wanted to do the shop next door, however, before taking a break. This one was much smaller and only had one salesperson. Again, Eeth engaged her into a lengthy discussion about the benefits, availability and cost of various weapon types.

As before, Raven stood quietly and patiently while Eeth spoke to the lizard-like T'doshok shopkeeper. Again, it was incredibly boring and despite her best efforts, Raven started shifting from foot to foot and fidgeting. Her eye caught a shiny spherical object that sat on the edge of the sales desk. It was about the size of an egg, and upon closer inspection seemed to be full of glitter or some sparkly liquid. Intrigued, she reached to pick it up, only for Eeth to swat her hand away before she could touch it. He did not stop talking while he did so, nor did he take his eyes off the salesperson. Great, so now not only did she have to stand around quietly and not do anything, she wasn't allowed to touch anything either. Raven gave him a wounded look, but refrained from touching anything else.

When they left the shop, it was close to 1pm. Eeth found a small Corellian food stall in a side alley that seemed to be popular with professionals working in the area which probably meant that the food was clean. They basically offered soups with strips of Corellian pancake and various other ingredients. Eeth ordered two, one of them vegetarian, and they took it to one of the bar tables outside the food stall to eat.

Raven couldn't say she was exactly starving here, but the idea of getting to do something, _anything_ , other than standing around quietly, made her feel like she had been hanging out for this food all day. They ate in silence. Eeth was not big on small talk and Raven honestly didn't know what to say. This was boring for her and he knew that, so complaining about it would only give him ammunition to say 'I told you so'.

Eeth was glad that Raven seemed to enjoy the food; more so than she usually did, apparently. "We may go to a cafe and see about a piece of cake or something similar later," he said. "But I want to look at another two stores at least before we do." This drew a groan from Raven, but nothing more; he had warned her that this would be boring, after all.

He moved them on to the next shop, a level further down, where the Toydarian dealer proved to be extremely talkative and eager to sell his more expensive goods. He led them into the backyard and started showing Eeth his vast store of defensive arms, explaining the technical details. Eeth listened patiently, occasionally throwing in an innocent question, the deeper meaning of which was totally lost on a Toydarian in full sales mode. This proved to be quite an informative talk for Eeth. It also turned out to be rather long-winded.

Long-winded was an understatement if you asked Raven, not that anyone did. The thought of using a Force suggestion on the bug to make him give the information Eeth wanted tumbled through her mind. Of course, Raven was not nearly skilled enough to attempt such a thing, and even if she were, the Jedi code forbade such intrusions on other beings. Besides, Toydarians were one of the few species of beings not susceptible to mind tricks. All valid points, which was why the thought left her mind as fast as it had entered. There wasn't a lot to do. The backyard they were in held a lot of junk, yet none of it was of interest to the padawan. When they had been talking for a solid hour without pause, Raven contemplated pleading with Eeth across their bond, but again, what was the point there? She had asked to come with him and he had warned her. Nothing to do now but suffer.

Finally, about twenty minutes later, there was a break in the conversation. The Toydarian looked at Raven for the first time since entering the backyard, drawing her attention to him. "I tell you what," he said to Eeth. "I cut you some slack here, eh. I like you, and I'm a good judge of character. So, let's go back to my office and talk about those missiles." He waved dismissively towards Raven with a clawed finger. "Leave the little one here, mmm."

Raven blinked. She was eleven, NOT a 'little one'. Her jaw squared, but before she could say anything rash, Eeth rested a hand on her shoulder. "Look around for a while," he said in a low voice. "I will be with you shortly and then we will go to a cafe."

Far from placated, but hiding it well, Raven nodded. "Alright, then," she replied. They were undercover, after all, so the term 'master' was probably best avoided. When Eeth left, Raven stood there in a backyard that was filled to the bursting with, well, shit! There was not a single bit of equipment here that the padawan knew what to do with. It was all parts of things. What sort of things she had no idea. Why couldn't Eeth have left her to look around in the interesting shop they'd visited before lunch? Raven still wanted to know what that black orb with the sparkling gel center was. Oh well, at least she could touch stuff out here without getting in trouble for it.

Half an hour passed in which Raven entertained herself by wandering around the shops adjacent. The shopkeepers there were more talkative than the elderly Toydarian left to mind the backyard store.

Raven finally returned to the shop where Eeth was still busy. She sat on the shell of a burned out speeder, chipping bits of paint from the wreck with a fingernail. It was then that she caught sight of an interesting reflection in a cracked side mirror. Several, no, more than several, at least five or six beings whose species Raven could not make out from here were huddled around something in the alley that ran adjacent to the Toydarian's backyard.

She continued to watch inconspicuously in the reflection for a minute or so before curiosity got the better of her and she went to find out what had them all so interested.

Confidently, Raven approached the group and squatted down amongst them as if she had been born doing this sort of thing.

"Buzz off. This is no place for kids!" said a humanoid man wearing a military uniform that Raven did not recognise as belonging to any service of Coruscant. He had commander stripes displayed on both shoulders, offset by some golden epaulettes. It looked fake, but then again, Raven didn't have any idea if it really was or not. By this point, it had become obvious that they were playing Corellian Spike. It was a common card game where you only needed basic maths skills and a bit of luck with some dice. Well, luck only if you weren't a Jedi. Raven decided to try bluffing. What harm could it do?

"I'm no kid. I'm from the planet of Chine, and everyone knows we look years younger than we actually are." By now everyone had stopped and was staring at her. Raven smiled and pulled her pocket money from her cargo pants pocket. "I got credits. What do you have to lose?"

Everyone looked from one to the other. Then, the commander laughed. "Course, deal her in. I had a deckhand from Chine once. Damned near thirty and poor sod looked no older than my teenager."

Raven tossed down her bet in the center pile. Apparently, everyone was happy to accept her explanation given that she had credits. This was going to be fun!

The first round Raven lost on purpose. Two reasons: Firstly, she wanted to put the others around her at ease and lead them into thinking they would quickly divest her of her credits. The second being that if she won every game, they'd surely think something was up. It wasn't hard to work out what cards to keep and to manipulate the dice, so Raven took the second game easily. "Luck's with me today," she remarked, trying to defuse the few scowls aimed at her. She was the new person, after all, and they were all expecting to take her credits, not the other way around.

Raven had no intention of actually keeping any of these credits for herself. The padawan had spotted several homeless huddled in alleys on her way here, all of whom she considered to have a much greater need than these gamblers.

She played another few rounds, winning some, losing some, and had managed to stay in the black, all the while keeping everyone from suspecting anything was amiss. That was until the padawan started to get distracted. Was Eeth back in the shop yet? Did she need to return now? She looked over her shoulder once, her concentration wavering. The dice she manipulated turned just a fraction too late to be believable, and before she knew what hit her, all hell broke loose.

"You take us for fools?" The man with the uniform bellowed, hefting her up by one arm so that she was dangling a good foot from the alley floor. Her lightsaber was now visible as she flailed to pull it from her jacket before he could take it off her. Well, the cat was out of the bag now.

Raven winced in pain, her legs kicking out at his vulnerable parts but only catching air.

He shook her forcefully enough to rattle her teeth, ripped the lightsaber from her jacket and tossed it at a skinny Rodian. "You'll make us some credits on the slave market. Extra if we sell this toy here with you."

The smallest of their group pulled a pair of zip lock hand restraints from his pocket and started trying to restrain her at the ankles. It was a mistake …

Raven's boot collected with his head so forcefully that it split his nose. He fell back screaming, the fountain of blood exploding over her captor enough to have him loosen his hold just enough for Raven to attempt struggling free. She had to get her lightsaber off the Rodian, that was priority one!

Eeth had sensed that something was wrong with his padawan the moment Raven was hefted up and he was in the alley ten seconds later. He took in the scene with one glance. In a mere moment, he was upon Raven's captor, gripping the man's wrist that was holding his padawan's arm in a hold of steel, his other hand on the hilt of his saber.

"Let her go," he said coolly. "Whatever happened here, and we will sort that out, she is my padawan learner, and I will not let you harm her."

"Yes, that the little wretch is a padawan is information that would have been useful _BEFORE_ we let her into a game of Corellian Spike." He released his grip, causing Raven to fall the foot to the ground. She landed uninjured, her hand immediately reaching out to summon her weapon from the man who was now backing away with it. Sure, it was only a training lightsaber, but they were still worth a few credits to the scum. Eeth would no doubt lecture her for losing her weapon. Her weapon was her life, that mantra was drummed into them from birth, and Raven had gone and lost hers! It was a relief when the metal connected with her palm, and despite the precarious situation she had been in, the girl let out a sigh of relief.

"Since when have the Jedi taken to gambling?" the fake commander asked, causing Raven to wince and slip behind Eeth.

"They have not," Eeth replied levelly. "But this one is still young. Have you used the Force to manipulate this game, padawan?" he asked without taking his gaze from the men.

Raven didn't want to answer that, but one look at Eeth's expression told her that she ought to, and that it better be truthful. "Yes, master."

"Yes, master indeed. Did you think I was lying?" the commander snorted at Eeth, and then he looked down at Raven. "Cough it up, brat. After all, it is considered cheating to use the Force to gamble." He held out his hand expectantly.

Raven pulled the credits from her pocket, but remained behind Eeth and handed them to him instead. She wasn't scared of the others; in fact, if anything, Raven was quite confident now that Eeth was here. Still, she had gotten caught out cheating and that was enough to have her shamefaced, regardless of her motivations.

"You are right, it is," Eeth replied calmly. "It is only one of many forms of cheating, of course." He gave the man a piercing look while he handed the money over, and a couple of them started backing up, mumbling unintelligible words. If Eeth's life experience was anything to go by, all of them were cheating in one way or another when gambling. They probably hadn't counted on being bested.

"Let us go, padawan," Eeth said curtly, turning to escort Raven down the alley.

"Not so fast," the commander spoke up, placing a hand on Eeth's shoulder to halt his escape. "Your padawan learner busted up my first mate and she used the Force to cheat us out of credits and she's going to walk away scotfree? I don't think so."

The man who Raven had kicked in the face was now standing, but was far from comfortable. He still had blood gushing from his nose, but had removed his shirt to soak it up. His face was swelling. He seemed to put all that aside, though, in order to back up the commander. "She almost killed me! Who's going to pay for my nose!"

"You were going to sell me, what did you expect!" Raven shouted, coming out from behind Eeth.

Eeth slowly and deliberately removed the commander's hand from his shoulder and turned back to face him.

"Do you want me to call law enforcement in order to have this settled?" he asked coolly. "If you do, just say the word. It will be no trouble at all." It was no bluff; Eeth was entirely ready to call the police. He doubted that the men would want him to, though. Raven was too young to be criminally responsible but it was rather likely that these men had things to hide.

"Jedi scum!" the man scoffed, but backed down all the same. No amount of satisfaction was worth the police sniffing around in his affairs.

Eeth decided to forego returning to the Toydarian shop. The last twenty minutes of conversation had mainly consisted of him staving off the shop owner's attempts at selling him things; he had received all the information that could be had at the place. Thus, he beckoned for Raven to follow him and headed towards the main street where he knew they would find a shuttle stop.

Raven followed him without comment, trailing along a little behind him and feeling a mixture of nervous anxiety. Was Eeth going to be pissed? If his stride length was anything to go by, yeah, he probably was. When they reached the station and boarded the shuttle that would take them to the garage where their speeder was parked, Raven risked breaking the silence. "You mad?" It was a simple statement, but Eeth's response to those two words would clue her in to exactly how deep she was in the shit.

Eeth looked down at her, frowning. "Do you think I have any reason to be pleased with your behaviour?" he inquired.

"I didn't die," Raven supplied, a hopeful expression on her face. "Aren't you even going to ask me why I was out there?"

"The commendable fact that you did not die notwithstanding," said Eeth sharply, "you should not even have been in a situation in which you might have died. And I fail to see what legitimate reason you might have had for getting yourself into said situation. Did they force you to join their game at blaster point?"

Right now Raven wished that they _had_ forced her at blaster point, because it seemed like it was about the only explanation that Eeth was willing to entertain. "No, master. But it's not as bad as you're making out. I shouldn't have let them get my lightsaber, but I almost had it back when you came out." That was debatable, but might have been true. She had flattened one of them, after all, and the girl had not made it this far in her career for nothing. Her nose wrinkled at how that all sounded.

Eeth aimed a supremely irate glare at her.

"You should not have let them get your saber? Padawan, what you are in trouble for is not the fact that you lost your saber, it is the fact that you got yourself into a situation where you could lose it in the first place. Now get off the shuttle. We need to retrieve our speeder. We will discuss this further when we're home."

"But, it's only three in the afternoon. You said we would spend the day and have dinner out," Raven questioned him, but left the shuttle all the same.

"I said we might," Eeth corrected her. "And that was before you went to have unauthorised adventures and endanger your safety. Padawan, you are exceedingly lucky that I did not want to give your seedy companions the satisfaction of turning you over my knee right in front of them. You will not be so lucky if you continue arguing."

Raven frowned, and her chin came out in a gesture that Eeth would recognise as stubborn defiance. "I was trying to help people, and you're threatening me with spanking! You should be spanking them!"

"Fortunately for them," Eeth snapped, "I am not in a position of authority over them. The same is not true for you. Now keep your mouth shut."

Raven huffed, but had the wherewithal to obey. It was bad enough as it was, let alone copping it in the middle of Coruscant. That was an experience the padawan was keen to avoid. Thus, she followed him to their speeder and got in without further complaint.

When they were airborne and in the traffic lane that would take them back to the Temple, Raven couldn't stand the tension any longer. Her nose wrinkled and she gave him a sideways glance. "So, when you say we'll talk about it later, you do mean talk, right?"

"Oh, yes, we will talk," Eeth said coolly. "After which you will most likely be adequately punished for what you did wrong. I assume that is what you wanted to know. Now I believe I told you to be silent."

That was not the answer Raven wanted to hear, and she kicked at the bulkhead of their speeder with her boot, making a good indent. She hadn't meant to actually dent the thing, despite the brief satisfaction it brought her. Her arms folded about her chest, but she did not risk looking at Eeth again.

Eeth did not say anything but the look on his face clearly conveyed how unimpressed he was. He remained silent until they had reached the hangar. As soon as they got out of the speeder, however, he grabbed Raven firmly by the arm, bent her over the front of the speeder, pulled his paddle out of his belt and gave her five hard whacks.

"I do not appreciate your attitude, padawan," he said sharply. "You are the one who got yourself into trouble. There is no reason for sulking and even less reason for taking it out on this speeder. If you cannot rein in your temper, your bottom will be sore before your punishment even starts. Now come."

With this, he let go of her arm, turned and strode off towards the turbolift, clearly expecting her to follow.

Okay, so Raven could tell that Eeth was not pleased, perhaps angry even. However, the last thing she expected was to find herself getting paddled in the freaking hangar. It hurt, too, causing her to yelp and drawing even more attention to her humiliation. When he let her up, the padawan stood bolt upright and started rubbing out the sting. She stared after him, and despite knowing she should follow, Raven did not. Her arms folded, her bottom lip quivered and she slid her back down the side of their speeder, slumping onto the hangar floor to sulk. Fine, if he wanted to be like that, she wasn't running after him.

Eeth had nearly reached the turbolifts when he realised that his padawan was not following him. He turned around slowly and considered his options for a moment. He could, of course, show sympathy and understanding, given that Raven was clearly in distress. Then again, she was also clearly sulking, after having misbehaved quite spectacularly and endangered herself in the process (which was really what was bothering Eeth most, not that he was showing it). And she was compounding all that by disobeying him now.

Having come to a decision, Eeth strode back purposefully, hoisted Raven up by her arm, bent her over the back of the speeder, pushed up her tunic and pulled down her pants in one swift motion, and resumed paddling her bottom in a fast rhythm.

Raven had her head buried in her knees and did not hear or sense Eeth returning. Thus, when she found herself back over the speeder, her trousers at her knees, she was none to pleased. "Waaaiitow!" she yelped, but it was too late. Her hands came back reflexively, only to move again; if he swatted her hand, it would hurt more.

"Are you ready to see sense and follow me back to our quarters without raising a fuss, or do you prefer me to keep at this?" Eeth asked grimly, not letting up on her bottom for a second. "I have to warn you, I do not tire easily."

"Yes, YES!" and "Noo!OW!" Raven bellowed, going up on her toes at a particularly nasty smack that landed low on her undercurve. Raven was many things, but as stubborn as she was, she was not stupid enough to think that she could win this battle of wills.

"Alright, padawan. Get up," Eeth snapped. He stowed the paddle away in his belt and waited for Raven to pull her pants up, then marched her off towards the turbolifts, pretending to be oblivious to the couple of snickering senior padawans who were just climbing a nearby speeder.

Eeth might not take any notice of the snickering padawans, but Raven certainly did. Still, she was Eeth's apprentice and, like it or not, she did have some of his traits, dignity being one of them. Thus, she tried to walk without rubbing and refrained from sniffling. It was really quite hard because Eeth had not been dishing out token swats; they had hurt, every last one of them!

When Eeth ushered them inside their quarters, Raven's first instinct was to run for her bedroom, but she did not. Instead, she sat by their door comm and pulled off her boots, and then she stood and turned to face Eeth. Raven didn't make eye contact, though. She focused on the flooring about a foot in front of him and fidgeted with the hem on her jacket.

"Sit," Eeth said brusquely, pointing at the couch. He took a seat in an armchair himself. "And tell me what happened. In detail."

Raven didn't want to sit, but nevertheless, she obeyed and started to explain how she had seen the group and gotten curious. It wasn't easy to tell him that she had bluffed her way into the game, but at the same time, Eeth might be pleased with her resourcefulness and so she didn't skimp on that detail. "I was playing that round out and then I was going to take what I won and give it to some of the homeless in the alleys. I swear it. But, I got distracted and the dice turned too slow." Raven cringed. "They kind of figured it out then and that's when the big guy grabbed me. You kind of saw the rest."

"What was that bit about them wanting to sell you?" Eeth inquired, stony-faced.

"Oh, that. They wanted to make money out of me, I guess. They were planning to sell my lightsaber, too. But I got that back." Raven tapped her belt where the weapon was once again safely attached.

"Padawan, you do not lose your saber in the first place," Eeth said severely. "Not under any circumstances. But that is hardly my main concern here. Do you have any idea why I might find fault with your decisions?"

Of course she did, but she didn't want to admit as much. The padawan squirmed and picked the lint on their couch.

"I asked you a question," Eeth said, his voice hard. "Answering it is not optional."

The look Raven shot him was pained, but she did sit up a little straighter at his tone. She opened her mouth to answer a few times, only to close it again and settled on: "Yes, master."

Eeth glowered at her. "I do not appreciate having to drag it out of you, padawan. Tell me what you did wrong. All of it."

Resigned, Raven sighed and dragged a hand down her face. Apparently, Eeth was bent on making her restate the lot. What choice did she have? "I gambled when I was underage to do so and I used the Force to cheat. And … I got myself into a situation where I lost my lightsaber and might have been abducted." It sounded pretty bad when it was put like that and it made her cringe, so she added: "But I was very resourceful to fool them into letting me, and I did fight my way out. Kind of." Raven stopped short of saying that she could have taken them as Eeth didn't look like he was in the mood to hear boasting about her hand-to-hand prowess right now.

"The operative word being 'kind of'," Eeth said sourly. "You endangered your safety in a big way and that is not something I am prepared to take lightly. Incidentally, what made you think that it is acceptable to leave the premises at all?"

"You said I could look around!" This ship was sinking fast, and Raven was doing her best to plug up the holes.

"I might have, yes," said Eeth sternly. "I had little opportunity to give you explicit instructions but it should have been obvious that you should have asked for permission before you left the yard. Did it honestly not occur to you to ask? Just how far did you think I might allow you to venture?"

"No, I didn't think to ask! The dealer told you to leave me behind."

"The next time you feel like going out into the streets of Coruscant unsupervised, be assured that I expect you to ask for permission, then," Eeth said grimly.

Raven pulled her knees into her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "Master, be reasonable. I was only trying to help."

Eeth did not appreciate being told to be 'reasonable' and it showed on his face. "You were not 'just trying to help', you were gambling, which you had no business doing, and cheating, which you had no business doing either, and endangering yourself, which you are not to do under any circumstances unless you cannot help it. You do not have sufficient experience to decide whether a situation is potentially dangerous, as today's incident has shown quite clearly. Therefore, entering that game without any need whatsoever was utterly reckless. It is not something I want to happen again, ever. Am I making myself clear?"

Raven wanted to argue that she _was_ just trying to help, and that it hadn't been at all reckless, that it was just a game! Although the tone and inflection of his closing question, which he made sound more like an order, had her refraining and instead say: "Yes, master." Raven didn't want to have this conversation any longer, yet she wanted what would probably follow it even less, so she started going for damage control. "I'm sorry I disappointed you, that I put myself in danger and that I acted recklessly. It won't happen again. I've learned, I promise."

"Padawan, this is not about disappointing me," Eeth said pointedly. "'Disappointment' is hardly an appropriate term to describe the feelings I would have had if something had happened to you. There are people out on the streets of Coruscant who do not hesitate to pull a blaster on you when they find out you are cheating them. Especially when you are a Jedi because, believe it or not, we scare some people. If the commander had decided to put a hole through your chest, I would have been too late to prevent it."

"I know," Raven replied solemnly while looking at her hands. The truth was that she didn't know at all. The prospect of someone putting a blaster bolt through her chest had never once occurred to the 'invincible' eleven-year-old, at least, not until now. She looked up at Eeth and this time her expression was honest regret for what she had done. "I'm sorry I worried you. It was a stupid thing to do. I won't do it again."

"Good," said Eeth grimly. "And I will make sure you keep that promise. Go to your room and wait for me there. I will be with you in a moment."

"Wait, you don't have to," Raven pleaded, jumping to her feet and meeting him with a truly beseeching expression. "I told you I've learned and I really mean it. I swear on the life of my padawan's padawan that I will never do anything like that ever again."

"That is good to hear," said Eeth, unmoved, "but such promises will never get you out of being punished. You made a bad decision and you will pay the price. That is the way things work. Now go to your room."

"Awww!" Raven whined, but had the prudence to obey him. Of course she knew how things worked; it had been that way since she had been brought to the Temple at just a few months of age, after all, or at least since she had been old enough to consciously make bad decisions. However, just because it was no surprise, didn't mean she had to like it. And Raven decidedly did not like it, even more so as a padawan because the punishments were far harsher.

Eeth closed his eyes and entered a light meditative trance. He really needed a moment to collect himself because, much as he was projecting sternness, he had been genuinely afraid at the scene he had witnessed. He needed to deal with that, and with any resulting anger, before he punished his padawan.

After a few minutes, he felt calmer and ready to get the inevitable over with. He went to the cupboard and took out the cane as well as a leather paddle. Equipped with the two items, he made his way to Raven's room.

"Padawan, bare your bottom and bend over your chair," he instructed, laying the paddle on her desk for later use and tapping the cane against the chair in question.

Raven looked up from where she was sitting on her bed, her knees pulled into her chest and swaddling a pillow. The sight had her going wide-eyed. "Master no. Please not that. You already paddled me, twice!" she begged while getting to her feet. Out of the implements in Eeth's infamous cupboard, the cane was without a doubt the worst! She had never felt pain like it before and thus had developed a healthy respect and fear of the thing. Both hands reflexively went to her backside, but her eyes remained glued on the cane.

"Neither of those paddlings were for your actual misbehaviour," Eeth replied sternly. "They were for your attitude. You have thoroughly earned this and you will take what is coming to you. Now get into position. If I need to tell you again, I will raise the number of strokes." In truth, he was not intending to cane her harshly, as he was well aware that this might be more than she could bear at the moment; and while she had been reckless, she had not actually disobeyed him outright. But he definitely thought that her misbehaviour was serious enough to warrant the cane.

"Awwww!" Raven wailed, jumping around on the spot for emphasis. The last thing she wanted to do was obey him because that was just going to end painfully, but then, the alternative was even worse! She absolutely did not want any more. So, it was with great reluctance that she moved to stand by the chair and did as told. Raven was brave, really she was! But when she felt Eeth place the cane on her bared backside, she started sniffling.

Pretending not to notice, Eeth said: "Your actions were dishonest and unworthy of a Jedi padawan. Even worse, they were extremely dangerous. I will not tolerate such behaviour, and you would do well not to repeat it."

With this, he raised the cane and brought it down onto Raven's bottom with medium force.

Eeth might not be taking a run up here, but it still fucking hurt! Raven let out a hiss that turned into a yell as the pain registered. By the time Eeth had landed three more, the last to her upper thighs, Raven had tears in her eyes and was squirming around on her toes. It was all she could do not to jump up and run around the room. Each welt felt like it cut right through her and then stung, burned and finally settled into a deep, dull ache.

Eeth laid the cane onto Raven's desk and picked up the leather paddle. "Your caning is over," he said firmly. "Here comes the rest of your punishment."

The rest!? "Waaaait! Master, no! I'm sorreeee," Raven tried.

Paying her no mind, Eeth raised the paddle and brought it down onto Raven's bottom, right onto the cane welts.

Any further protestations were cut short at this, and Raven put all her efforts into yelping and pleas for him to stop. The paddle set all the welts alight and made it near impossible to keep from jumping around. She grabbed hold of the chair, but when the next one landed it finally got too much for the padawan and she started crying. It hurt.

Eeth brought the paddle down in slow, measured swats another three times, focussing on the lower part of her bottom where he had also aimed the cane strokes.

Raven had stopped begging at this point, her sobs becoming unintelligible. She had all but reached the point where self-preservation would take over, and remaining bent over the chair of her own volition would prove impossible.

"Two more, padawan," Eeth said gently. He rested his left hand on the small of her back to prevent her from getting up and delivered the last two swats quickly, one onto Raven's sitspot and the other one on the crease where her bottom met her thighs. Then he laid the paddle onto her desk and waited for her to regain her composure.

Raven was fast to right herself and start hopping from foot to foot. It did not help at all; no amount of rubbing seemed to soothe cane welts and having gotten a paddling on top of that exacerbated everything significantly. Not caring that she might be taking this with less dignity than was expected of her, the padawan threw herself onto her bed, buried her face into a pillow and cried.

Eeth sat down on the bed beside Raven and put his hand on her back quietly, sending her a burst of reassurance through their bond. He did not speak.

Nor did Raven speak; she was too busy crying and perhaps wallowing in a little self-pity. After a few minutes had passed, her cries reduced to sniffles and eventually only the occasional hiccough caught her off guard. She wanted to tell Eeth to go away, that she wanted to be alone, but the truth was far from that and so she rolled onto her side and snuggled the pillow close. Her face was no longer a mess as her pillowcase had taken the brunt of that. "You still mad?" she asked sheepishly, but what Raven really wanted to know was if he was done punishing her or was there more to come.

"I have never been 'mad'," replied Eeth. "I did not approve of your behaviour and I have punished you for it. I will also want to talk to you some more about it because I think it is particularly important that you learn from this. But first, meditate for half an hour. I will tell you when your time is up."

Raven wrinkled her nose. Apparently, he wasn't done. "Why do you always make me meditate after punishment? Don't you know it's hard to concentrate when your ass is on fire?"

"Yes, I do," Eeth replied sternly. "The point of punishment is not to make it easy on you, though. And besides, it will do no good unless you learn from it. I believe that some reflection helps to achieve that. And the pain will serve as a reminder of why, exactly, you are asked to reflect your behaviour. Now get to it."

Raven wasn't quite sure what sort of an answer she had expected to get. 'Yes, you are entirely correct, padawan, I've changed my mind' would have been nice. Unfortunately for her, the answer she did receive was far from that. Raven huffed, pulled up her cargo pants with a wince and got to her feet. The thick material was not at all comfortable, so when Eeth left her to it, she was quick to change into a comfortable training uniform. The last thing Raven wanted to do now was meditate. Her ass burned, although the ache was starting to supersede the surface sting. Reluctantly, the padawan knelt on her bed and leant her head into the wall with a gentle thunk; she hated doing this.

Eeth was, of course, not going to release her from doing this simply because she hated it. He went to the kitchen, checked the contents of their cooler and ordered some groceries from the commissary. Then he prepared a plate of biscuits and a pot of tea. By the time he had finished doing all this, the half hour was over and he went to knock on Raven's door.

"Padawan, your time is up," he called. "Please come out into the common room. I would like to talk to you. I am also willing to offer some healing."

The half hour had not been easy, so when Eeth knocked, Raven was on her feet in and out the door in an instant. "What do you want to talk about?" she asked, leaning into one of their arm chairs. Naturally, the padawan was disinclined to sit.

Eeth nodded towards the couch. "Lie down and bare your bottom," he said. "I will provide some healing while we talk."

Well, that was the first order Eeth had given in hours that the padawan did not mind obeying. She lay down so that her head was closest to their sliding door and looked out onto the small balcony. There wasn't much to see from this angle, other than the occasional flash of a speeder flying closeby.

While Eeth started to gently massage a small amount of bacta into Raven's welted buttocks, letting a steady flow of healing energy flow into the punished skin, he said: "Padawan, I have not been punishing you in order to torture you. I did it because I know how important it is for your development to be cleared for missions. What you did today was not the kind of behavior I could tolerate on any mission. Even on the safest kind of mission, I need to rely on you to stay where you are, to let me know when you leave, and not to venture into unknown situations without good reason. If you do not understand that and act accordingly, you will not be cleared for mission eligibility. That is why I'm being so harsh with you. Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?"

Raven winced as the bacta began working on the welts. Yes, she could still feel all four of them. This didn't hurt per se, not really, it just stung a bit. She thought about his question. "That you don't think I'm ready for mission clearance," Raven summarised, feeling sorry for herself.

Eeth raised his eyebrows. "That is beside the point," he said. "The point is that you need to think about what obtaining mission clearance means for you and what kind of behaviour it will require. Even when you are bored. _Especially_ when you are bored."

"I know. It's not like I went out of my way to deliberately sabotage my chances of getting mission clearance. I was just curious, and then I thought I could use some extra credits to help the others. I'm sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time." She had also been bored, but given that Eeth had already deduced as much, she refrained from restarting that.

"I did not imply you deliberately sabotaged your chances of obtaining mission clearance," Eeth pointed out. "I assumed you simply did not think. Which is exactly what this punishment, including the half hour of meditation, was meant to change. If it does not, the next time you do something like this, the consequences will be decidedly worse."

He screwed the jar of bacta shut, wiped his fingers on a tissue and stood.

"Worse?" Raven didn't want to think about how he would go about one upping himself in this department, and so she left that question hanging, and started fanning the bacta dry.

"Worse as in 'more than once'," Eeth said drily. "Would you like a snack?" He pointed at the pot of tea and plate of biscuits.

Raven blanched, pausing her efforts at fanning for a moment. Eeth had spanked her every night for a week, among other things, when she had freed those battery hens on Pellebet. It was an experience that the padawan never wanted to repeat, ever! She kept at the fanning for a minute or so, not saying anything, and then got to her feet and righted her clothing. It still hurt, but it was going to be bearable and she would be well able to sit soon enough. Raven took a cookie. She wasn't sulking, not exactly, but sometimes it did take her a while to forgive Eeth for punishing her, especially so in the more serious cases where he used the cane.

Eeth sat down at the dining table, poured himself a cup of tea, pulled up a datapad and started writing a report on today's findings. To him, this afternoon's incident was closed.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: I know we say this a lot, but it truly is heartfelt; thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read, review and IM us! We're enjoying re-visiting our old work and it's great to get feedback and know what you guys think. Chapter nine will be out quicker than this one as we've already edited a huge chunk of it whilst working on this chapter. It was a tricky one to break up. Okay, here goes. We hope you enjoy.

* * *

Three days passed without incident. Eeth refused to take Raven into the city on Sunday but he consented to having their workout at the pools and gave her the afternoon off. Monday, Raven's hand-to-hand combat class resumed. She made good progress, and Eeth was confident that she would be able to pass the exam. Which was no reason for her to neglect her other duties, though, he thought with a frown as he was waiting for her to get ready for the day that Wednesday morning.

Raven had the entire top of her body upended in her dirty clothes hamper and was desperately trying to get herself sorted out so she would not be late for Master Rool's class. It was going to start in half an hour and the padawan had still not done her chores. Finally, she managed to find her belt and ran out into the common room, grabbed her saber and started piecing herself together. She felt Eeth's gaze on her and looked up from where she was fumbling with her belt to meet his displeased expression. "Do you think you could let me off finishing my chores this morning? I'm gonna be late. I'll do them when I get back, promise," she hedged, getting frustrated that her belt was not clipping together properly.

Eeth frowned. "And may I ask why you are late with your chores?" he inquired.

Raven resisted the temptation to say: 'No, you may not,' if only because she didn't want to start the day on his shit list. "First, the tunic I was going to wear had a stain on it, and the other one was wrinkled so I had to find another one. Then, I had to redo my braid three times because it had lumps." Raven didn't expect Eeth to understand the concept of a bad hair day, given that his always seemed to be perfectly straight and shiny, but she ploughed on nonetheless. "I didn't have a towel, and had to go get one, and then I had to clean up the water I dripped all over my bathroom." She'd streaked through their common room to where Eeth kept their spare towels, but thankfully, most of the water had ended up on her bedroom carpet and there were no wet, incriminating footprints left for Eeth to notice.

"You should learn to organise your laundry better, then," Eeth replied calmly. "You may postpone whatever chores do not fit in now until after your lesson. At which time you will kindly tend to our laundry as well."

Raven had half expected that. It didn't mean she had to like it, though, and having to do their laundry on top of her other chores, although not a horrific punishment, would be, well … 'a chore'.

Breakfast was eaten in a hurry because Raven really was running behind. "I don't suppose you would send a message to Master Rool saying that I need the day off due to having too many chores lumped on my personage?" Raven feigned contemplation as she took a bit of her toast. "You can tell him that I had an allergic reaction to the Temple soap," she suggested, just in case he lacked for creativity.

Eeth just gave her a _look_ and did not dignify that proposal with a reply.

"What? You don't think he'd go for it? Fine, if you want to be picky. How about chronic indigestion? No, wait!" She sat up taller and pointed her toast at him, some jam dripping off onto the tablecloth. "Gallstones! Granted, it's not as watertight as cystitis, but still, hard to disprove."

"Padawan, if you do not finish your breakfast in thirty seconds and leave for your class, I will give you gallstones," Eeth replied drily, draining his own cup of tea.

Grumpy.

It didn't take Raven long to arrive at Rool's class, right on time. The class went reasonably well from Raven's perspective. She did catch a swipe with his cane for goofing around. It had hurt, too, but not enough that she couldn't keep it together. Other than that, the class was a breeze and right up Raven's alley; she excelled at this and it showed.

"Let's go to the lunch hall," Bindi suggested as the two padawans left Rool's class that afternoon.

Raven wrinkled her nose. "Eeth was on the warpath this morning. Not sure he'll be in a giving mood." Of course, Raven left out the reason for said warpath.

"You've got a comlink. Besides, as you never tire of reminding me, 'you have to be in it to win it'." The Twi'lek grinned. She had some exciting news to share, and it was killing her to keep it inside.

Raven knew her friend well. "So, what's the bombshell? I haven't seen you this cheerful since the results of last terms exams," she asked while pulling out her comlink and inputting Eeth's code.

Bindi opened her mouth to reply, but Eeth chose that moment to answer the comlink.

"Master," Raven greeted the tiny blue hologram that flickered an inch above her comlink with a slight bow. "Could I have lunch in the dining hall today, please?"

Eeth considered the request for a moment and then said: "You may, but be back in an hour exactly. You will be busy with chores this afternoon. Do not be late."

"Yes, master," Raven replied obediently. Then, when his hologram disappeared, she muttered: "You will be busy with chores. Do not be late," in a mock-Eeth tone.

Bindi thought her impersonation was really quite good, but didn't comment. Instead, she said: "See, he's not such a tyrant after all. Honestly, I don't know what everyone complains about with your master. He seems positively docile to me."

"Docile?!" Raven couldn't help it, she started chuckling. Eeth had been called many things by her peers, but docile was a new one.

"Come on, let's eat. I don't think I can hold in this news much longer." They found the dining hall closest, served themselves some food and found a table.

"Okay, okay, you're not going to believe this, but…" Bindi pulled her lightsaber from her belt and sat it on the table. "Master Azlin let me build it yesterday. I almost didn't come to class because it took me all of yesterday and well into the night, but I wanted to show you. I had to show someone!"

"Woah! Bindi!" Raven was honest to the Force hell impressed by this! She picked up the new weapon, noticing that it wasn't as heavy as Eeth's but nor was it as light as her own padawan's blade. This train of thought sparked a question. "What colour is it?"

"Blue," Bindi answered proudly.

"Does it feel different? I've never had the courage to try out Eeth's." Which was not to say that Raven had never been tempted; she most definitely had! However, she was pretty sure that playing around with the weapon belonging to the guy in charge of weapons legislations for the Council could only end in disaster.

"It's a lot more powerful, and as Master Azlin says, dangerous."

"But how does it feel?"

Bindi had to think about that. "It's hard to explain. It's something you have to feel for yourself. Hey, do you want to try it out? We can go to the east wing gardens, there's never anyone there."

Raven's eyes widened at the idea, but she hadn't gotten this far in her apprenticeship without knowing how Eeth would react to violations of their weapons code. "My master is in charge of weapon legislations for the Council. If we get caught, I'll be meditating on an impossibly sore ass for the next twenty years! That's not to mention, Azlin might take your weapon off you." Raven said, looking surprised that those words had come from her own mouth and not her usually uber-responsible friend's.

"There's always a chance you'll get caught whenever you do something that you shouldn't be doing," said Bindi.

"Are you willing to risk it?" Raven asked, honestly wanting to know what had gotten into her usually rule-abiding friend.

"Of course. Besides, Azlin wouldn't take my weapon away from me just for wanting to give you an understanding."

"I guess," Raven agreed, contemplating. "It's not like I'll dismember myself or anything. I'm at the top of my class."

Bindi agreed. They continued to talk out the pros and cons of their plan in great detail and for some time, and agreed that it would be entirely reasonable and not breaking any rules if Bindi gave a demonstration. Of course, this didn't help Raven learn how the weapon felt in the slightest, but it was a start.

… and it turned out to be a loooong start. Raven looked at her watch, and as much as she was enjoying watching Bindi work her new lightsaber, she jumped to her feet. "Force, I got to go."

This insight came too late. There was no way Raven could return home in time. And indeed, Eeth was already waiting for her as she entered their quarters, levelling her with a stern look.

"You are seven minutes late," he said. "Are you desperately trying to be assigned yet more chores this afternoon?"

"No, master. Sorry. Bindi had some really important news to tell me." Raven tossed her cloak over a hook and sat to remove her boots.

"I gave you an hour," Eeth pointed out. "That should have been more than sufficient for her to tell you. In addition to doing the laundry, you may clean the kitchen this afternoon. You need to learn to organise your time better."

"Aww, seriously?" Raven complained, but had to admit that she had earned as much. She gave him an exasperated look. "Why do I have to spend my whole afternoon doing chores anyway?"

Eeth frowned. "You have to do chores because you were late with your chores this morning, and you were home late from lunch. You know that both are unacceptable. Did your class go well?"

She did know. Still … didn't mean she had to like it. Raven skidded her boots into place by the door and got to her feet. "It went okay. It's fun, and I'm pretty good at it so I like it. He's grumpier than you are, though, and that's saying something." Of course, the single whack she'd gotten from master Rool had long since faded, but she was still not happy about having caught it in the first place.

"Is it?" Eeth asked, the edges of his mouth quirking slightly. "I will be very grumpy indeed unless you get to work immediately."

Raven had only been apprenticed to Eeth for a little less than five months, yet she picked up on his slight amusement. It was very subtle, but it was most definitely there. Still, the padawan did not push it and, not bothering to hide her grin, she inclined her head and busied herself with the long list of chores that had accumulated. And it was a loooong list! Her desk was a mess, her bed remained unmade, and her room was still strewn with clothing from this mornings tunic hunt. Then, there was their laundry. She gathered their clothing and piled it into their machine. The good thing about the Temple was that if they were unable to do this themselves, their quarters also had a laundry shoot that took their things to the Temples main laundry where droids would take care of it. However, Eeth didn't like to rely on that when they were well able to do it themselves. The kitchen took about an hour to go over completely; their quarters really were kept quite tidy to begin with. Finally, Raven was almost done. She was seated on their common room floor folding laundry and then that was it. Freedom! It was almost five in the afternoon when Raven approached Eeth. "Done, so unless you have any other ideas to torture me with, can I watch holo?"

Eeth considered this for a moment. "Alright," he finally said. "One hour. I have booked a gym for us after dinner. We will have half an hour's kata practice then, just so you do not get out of practice." During term break, Eeth had significantly reduced their workouts, at least on weekdays, given that Raven was already working out for about four hours every morning. However, while he did not teach her any new skills, he made sure she got to handle a saber every day for at least half an hour so she did not lose her prowess.

"Yes!" It was music to Raven's ears. She did a commando roll across their common room and fell backwards onto their couch as if fatally wounded. Invisible blaster fire always popped up in the strangest of places: in the Temple corridors, when she was exiting her refresher, and most recently, moving to watch the holo. One had to remain on top of such things.

Eeth shook his head at her antics but did not comment. Apparently, even after four hours of hand-to-hand combat class and an afternoon of household chores, she still had energy to burn. Well, their workout would remedy that.

And it did.

That evening Raven fell asleep reading on their couch. She had asked to watch the holo again but was denied. Apparently, twice in one day was simply too much of an indulgence for Eeth's liking.

"Padawan, please get ready for bed!" Eeth called from his desk in his room. There was no reply. Eeth tried to nudge Raven through their bond and found her fast asleep. Frowning, he made his way to the common room and reached down to shake her awake. At the last moment, he restrained himself. The girl was obviously tired and she needed her strength for the final day of hand-to-hand combat training tomorrow. Master Rool had reserved Friday morning for the exam.

With an internal sigh, Eeth gently lifted Raven from the couch, carried her to her room and lay her down on her bed. He was loath to let her sleep on like that, without having brushed her teeth, changed into her pajamas, and meditated, but he reasoned that this was an exception. He was going to tell her tomorrow morning that this had been the last time he would allow for such exceptions. Definitely.

The following morning, Raven awoke just as Eeth opened her bedroom door. She squinted as he flicked on the light, and then she looked down to find she was still dressed in a workout uniform. She gave Eeth a sheepish look, but waited to see if he would say anything because either he had carried her in here, or she had started sleepwalking. Both were going to dent the eleven-year-old's pride.

"Good morning, padawan," said Eeth. "You fell asleep on the couch last night. Just for the record: this is the first and last time that I will bring you to bed and allow you to sleep without even having brushed your teeth. Now get ready for the day, please. Breakfast is waiting."

'Oh, somebody please kill me now.' Raven scrubbed at her eyes and dragged a hand down her face; Eeth had carried her in here. Her eleven-year-old pride was smarting. "Yes, master." It was not going to happen again if Raven could help it. She was far too old to be carried to bed like a toddler. Last night had been but a minor lapse. Besides, her teeth felt furry. Ew!

After yesterday's start to the day, and the consequences that had followed, Raven organised her time far better this morning. She emerged from an orderly bedroom right on time, her padawan braid done, chores completed and uniform presentable. "Morning, master," she greeted him with a bow.

"Good morning, padawan," Eeth replied. He beckoned for her to sit down at the table; for some reason, he had made breakfast a little more lavish than usual.

"Today will be your last day of practice before the exam," he said. "Make use of it."

"Of course," Raven replied with a touch of indignation. After all, this was not a subject that she needed persuading in order to do her best. Raven excelled at this and her confidence in her abilities, and perhaps arrogance, were growing along with her prowess.

"Thanks for making breakfast," she told him some time later when they were clearing the table. Typically, Raven helped with breakfast but today Eeth had done the lot by himself. It had been good, too.

"You are welcome," Eeth replied. "Get ready for class." He had noticed Raven's overconfidence but did not comment. This was a lesson she would only learn from experience. As a teenager, he himself had been struggling with pride in his skills to the point of arrogance and his master's reprimands had done little to change that. And it was not as if Raven had given him any reason to reprimand her; she really was doing well in that class, and there was little doubt to him that she would excel at her exam.

That afternoon Raven returned to their quarters practically beaming. Master Rool had requested her help, yes, HER help, to demonstrate some moves that required a little more skill, and if her head had got any bigger, she might not have made it out the gym doors. Or so Bindi had commented; completely unfounded, if you asked Raven. "Master," Raven greeted Eeth with a bow. He was seated at their dining room table, poring over a datapad.

"Padawan," said Eeth, looking up and noticing the pleased – or possibly even slightly smug – expression on Raven's face. "I take it your lesson went well today?"

"It did." Raven sat down opposite and regaled him with every detail of today's lesson and how she had been the star pupil.

Their afternoon was typical. They ate lunch in the dining hall, before doing kata practice. After dinner, Raven was busy organising her things for the following day when their comm unit signaled an incoming message. "I'll get it!" she called, running for their common room, but she was too late. By the time she skidded to a stop in front of their comm unit, Eeth was already mid-conversation.

"Padawan, I will have to attend an urgent mission briefing in twenty minutes," said Eeth when he had ended the call. "You are free for the evening. Please meditate before you go to sleep and mind that you go to bed on time. And no more than half an hour of holochannel."

"Yes, master, but can I spend some time on the holonet instead? I want to study for tomorrow's hand-to-hand exam," Raven asked. She didn't just want to pass this exam, she wanted to own it.

Eeth considered her question for a moment. "You may," he said, "but it might be better to just focus on what you learned in Master Rool's class, for now."

Eeth's statement piqued Raven's interest. "How come?" In her experience, she had always been encouraged to branch out when studying for exams, so why should this be any different?

"Not everything you find on the holonet might be pertinent to the exam," said Eeth. "Some things might even be false or in contradiction to what you have been taught. If you absolutely want to learn more about the moves you have been taught, I have no objection, but try to exercise some caution."

Of course Raven knew not to believe everything she read on the holonet, but most of the time her academic subjects were pretty standard across the board. That this might not be, had the opposite effect; Raven was now even more curious at the things she might find out that could give her an edge.

That evening Raven did as Eeth had instructed and went about her nightly routine. However, when it came to giving up on the holonet and going to bed, it wasn't as easy. Eleven-thirty that evening Raven was still up researching for her exam. She was dressed in her pajamas, perched on the side of the chair, one ear outside the headset, and her senses tuned to Eeth's approaching presence. Thus, when Eeth finally returned home after his Council meeting at almost midnight, Raven was off the chair so fast that she had to use the Force to stop it spinning as she dove under her sheets.

Eeth entered their quarters, finding them as dark and silent as he had expected. His sense of his padawan through their bond did not convey sleep, however. He palmed open the door to her room, finding her in bed. Her quiet breathing did not conceal the fact that she was awake, though.

"Are you still awake, padawan, or did I wake you up?" he asked softly.

Raven rolled over, squinted as Eeth approached her bed, and then she yawned and her eyes closed again. "I heard the door open," she mumbled.

"Go back to sleep," Eeth said gently, resting a hand on her head and sending her a very light sleep compulsion through their bond. It was late and she needed her sleep.

It was, in fact, the latest that Raven had stayed up since becoming Eeth's apprentice. The sleep compulsion was accepted gratefully because she really did have a lot on the next day…

* * *

"I wish you success with your exam," Eeth said as Raven stood before him ready to leave the following morning. He never wished others 'good luck' in exams. In his opinion, luck had nothing to do with it whatsoever.

"Success is a given, the only factor is how much I ace this class by." Raven replied confidently. It was arrogant, and her lip curled into a smile to convey to Eeth that she wasn't entirely serious. Not entirely.

Eeth raised his eyebrows. "I know you have done well in this class," he said. "But do not take the exam lightly. Master Rool will not hesitate to fail you if you do."

"Yes, master," Raven replied, and was out the door in a flash. The truth was she didn't really think she had anything to worry about, and that master Rool was a hard-ass grader, well, that was just more reason to impress him with the hours of research she had put in last night. Raven was tired, though, and apparently, it showed.

"Did you get called out on a mission?" Bindi questioned, noticing that Raven had darkened slightly below the eyes since having arrived barely ten minutes ago.

"I should be so lucky," Raven snorted, but before she could elaborate and share her ideas on acing their exam, Rool entered and the classroom fell silent.

Like he had done every lesson, Rool assigned one of the students to lead the class through a warm-up. Since all of the students knew by now what was expected of them, the Twi'lek boy made the warm-up sufficiently strenuous to satisfy their stern teacher. Nobody wanted to get on his bad side today, of all days!

When they were done, Rool instructed the students to spread out and assume places across the room. "Your exam will begin now," he said curtly, standing back against the wall and folding his arms across his chest to watch. He had recruited eight junior knights to help. They were now silently entering the room from the back and, at Rool's nod, vaulted towards a padawan each, starting to grip them in a simple but powerful hold.

Raven and Bindi had just enough time to exchange glances before all hell broke loose. The Kel Dor knight that had hold of Raven was a lot taller and heavier, but then, that was going to be true for most of their attackers, she noted upon glancing around the room.

The Kel Dor had her right shoulder in a vice-like grip and was dragging her towards the ground. Raven knew the defence, though. She quickly raised her right arm straight up in the air and brought it around to encircle her attacker's arm from the back, locking the offending arm in, elbow first. She managed to turn the tables on the 'who had hold of whom' situation slightly to her favour, and then she used the opportunity to kick out at the back of the knight's supporting knee, dropping her to the ground.

Raven backflipped out of reach, almost knocking over a struggling pair behind her. It really was bedlam in here with sixteen bodies thrashing and tumbling all over the place.

The Kel Dor gave an approving nod, and then she turned her attention to another student, just as another opponent, this time a shorter, but stouter humanoid knight, vaulted over. The two grappled for a minute, but eventually the knight's superior skill won out and he managed to get Raven into a headlock. His grip was tight enough to make Raven's breathing laboured; it was about as realistic as one could make it without actually causing her any harm.

Again, Rool had taught them the defence for this. Raven turned her head to the side, stepped her left foot in front of his, forced her shoulder up and underneath his arms and dropped her elbow back into his solar plexus sharply. It was by no stretch of the imagination a soft hit, and although the knight was expecting it, he still let out a short gasp before releasing her. Raven didn't give the man a chance to recover before darting off through the mass of tangled bodies. She was lucky enough to stumble upon Bindi during her escape. The Twi'lek had just thrown off her own attacker and was now watching a Wookie knight beside her dangle his small, unfortunate victim upside down by a foot.

"Over here." Raven motioned to her friend and the two stood back to back, fighting their way over to the nearest wall where the pair used the force to jump onto an above platform, and away from the danger below.

"It's a better view from up here, but do you think this will be considered cheating?" Bindi said.

"Cheating? Force, no. I spent hours researching from all the greats last night. The consensus is: 'the best defence is not to be there'."

"I suppose. Master Rool didn't say we couldn't think outside the box," said Bindi.

"Exactly," agreed Raven. "Besides, what's a little passive aggression between friends?"

Bindi smirked at her friend's comment, and winced as the boy being dangled from the Wookie knight finally managed to get himself dropped by landing a shot to his balls.

In the meanwhile, Rool had taken out a data pad and started taking notes on each student's performance. He paid no attention to Raven and Bindi and signalled for the knights to leave them alone. After about half an hour, he rapped his cane against the wall. The attackers immediately backed off. He gave them a nod of thanks; they bowed to him and disappeared through the same back door they had entered by.

Raven and Bindi dropped from their perch, landing softly, and lined up with the others. The look on Raven's face was one of superiority; she had done so well and now Rool was going to tell the others that she and Bindi were the only two that showed real initiative and creativity for the art of hand-to-hand.

"Now," said Rool, addressing the class. "In order to pass, you needed to fend off a minimum of eight attacks in less than three minutes per attack. For those of you who passed, your grade depends on how competently you applied the techniques you were taught and how fast you managed to do so. Seven of you have succeeded in fulfilling my requirements. Tovvin, you were simply too slow. You only managed to fend off six, and the last of those cut you some slack. I will notify your master of this and give him options for furthering your training to the point where you will be able to pass the exam."

Tovvin nodded unhappily. This did not come entirely unexpected; he had always had difficulties with this class and Rool had already mentioned to him in private, after class, that he would do better to repeat it or take private tutoring, depending on his master's preferences.

"As for you two," Rool said in a growl, turning towards Raven and Bindi. "Apparently, you decided that you were done taking this exam after having fended off two attackers. You did not do yourselves any favours by this. You failed as well. Your masters will be notified. I will discuss the further procedure with them. Dismissed. Now, as for the rest of you…" He turned towards the seven other students, paying Tovvin, Bindi and Raven no further mind.

Failed?! Raven's stomach turned to ice, her jaw fell open and she almost choked. "But, I'm the best in the class. I spent hours researching this. The best defence for any confrontation is to not be there in the first place." Raven rattled off a list of names, all of which were the galaxy's top martial artists, and all of whom she had gotten the idea from. "You can't fail me, it's ludicrous."

Bindi discretely nudged her friend; apparently, Raven had lost her mind since Rool didn't need much of a reason to start swinging his cane around.

Rool snorted. He grabbed Raven by her ear, turned her around and snapped the cane across her backside once to get her attention. "You would have been better off just applying what I taught you," he informed her. "The aim of this exam was to evaluate your prowess at the techniques you learned in class, not your skill at disappearing. Removing yourself from the fight does not equal a competent defence against six different attacks in this exam. Now go."

He got her attention alright. Raven went up on her toes and squinted as a band of fire lit up across her backside. She hissed, and her hands went back reflexively to rub out the line. It wasn't the first time she'd felt it; in fact, just about everyone, with the exception of Bindi, had felt his cane at least once. "No. I was demonstrating lateral thinking, and lateral thinking is a huge part of hand-to-hand. They all said so. Maybe it's not me who lacks skill, but you." And with that Raven turned on her heel and strode from the room.

Bindi looked from Raven's retreating back, to Master Rool, and put her hands up in placation. "She's tired," she offered in way of explanation, and backed her way out the door after Raven. "Wait up!"

"I'm so sorry, Bindi. This is all my fault. If you'd not listened to my idea, you would have passed."

"Hey, it was my choice, and for what it's worth, I thought it was a pretty good idea. Anyway, it's just a class. Maybe next cycle we'll get someone who isn't a complete tyrant? It could be fun," said Bindi, the eternal optimist.

Raven sighed. "I wanted mission clearance so bad! This is so unfair. I want to go in there and beat everyone up just to prove that I can."

"I know, but you can't. Let's just go home and put it behind us."

This drew yet another groan from Raven; she was wracking those up today. "Eeth's going to tear me a new one over this."

Bindi looked reflective for a moment. "Maybe he will be sympathetic. The guy failed us, after all; that's pretty devastating."

Raven simply didn't share her friend's optimism. The two walked until they parted ways at the final lift, but rather than go directly home, Raven detoured past a garden. She needed time to cool down, to cry, to vent her frustrations that were fast building.

Rool, in the meantime, took his time giving individual feedback to each of the seven successful candidates. Then he sat in one of the instructors' rooms adjacent to the gym and called Bindi's and Raven's masters. He informed them of what had happened and, in Eeth's case, also of what Raven had said to him before storming out on him. Eeth frowned as he heard it. However, he merely said: "I will talk to her."

"Good," said Rool. "I am willing to let her take the exam again this weekend. I do think she has learned enough to pass. But she will have to apologise for her disgraceful exit and convince me that she has understood why her behaviour was wrong and caused her to fail."

Getting Raven to acknowledge that was going to be quite some task, Eeth assumed. But it was a task that he felt up to.

"I will call you again tonight to fix the time and location for the exam, then," he told Rool. Then he ended the call and waited for Raven to come home. And waited. And waited. He could sense that she was not too far off, but she did not seem to be approaching. Finally, he took his comlink and called her.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Yay, we made it to the final chapter! Thanks to everyone who has joined us for the ride; it was fun to edit this and great to hear what you guys all thought. Keep an eye out for the next story: 'Of Ceremonies, Stampedes & Assassins', in which Eeth and Raven go on their very first mission. We're excited to be revisiting this one and share it with you all. If you want to be notified when we post new content, follow us on fanfiction and never miss an update.

Again, thank you to all who have read, reviewed and sent us IMs. Your support is very much appreciated.

–Livia & Raven

* * *

Shocked by her unexpected failure in the hand-to-hand combat exam, Raven had withdrawn to a garden, crying, sulking, attempting to vent her frustration into the Force and generally feeling sorry for herself over what she considered a gross injustice. She wasn't ready to go home when her comlink went off, and so she silenced it … and then she felt even worse for doing that! Eeth would have a pink fit if he found out she had deliberately ignored him. She unsnapped her comlink from her belt and drew back her arm; she was going to throw the thing into the stream. Fortunately for her, though, it went off again, and the padawan lost her nerve. "Master," she answered, trying to keep any guilt from her tone and expression.

"Padawan, where are you?" asked Eeth. "Your exam is long over. I would like to talk to you."

'Well, I don't want to talk to you,' Raven thought. However, this wasn't Eeth's fault and, as miserable as she felt, she really couldn't justify the response. So, as loath as she was to talk about the crapshoot she had landed herself in today, there probably wasn't much of a choice. "I'm in the garden closest to our quarters." She gestured behind herself, but the holographics on a comlink were not great for background details. "I don't want to come home or talk about it. I failed, but you probably know that."

"Yes, I do," Eeth said, "and whether you like to talk about it is entirely irrelevant. I want to talk to you and I will. Come home immediately."

Okay, so pitching her comlink into the stream was one thing, but deliberately disobeying a direct order was another matter entirely. Raven clicked her tongue, annoyed, but there was nothing to be gained (at least nothing good) by continuing to fight him over this.

Five minutes later, Raven entered their quarters to find Eeth seated at their dining room table. She looked at him briefly and then dropped her gaze and sat to remove her boots.

Eeth waited for her to finish. Then he said, "Sit down and tell me how, exactly, you managed to fail an exam in a subject that you excel at, and why you think it happened."

"I failed because master Rool is incapable of free thought." Raven sat in the chair opposite him, looking none too pleased about having to rehash this morning's disaster. "He knows I'm the best in the class, yet he failed me on semantics because I used a strategy that is suggested by just about every top hand-to-hand martial artist in the galaxy." Raven went on to explain what had happened and how she had suggested the same to Bindi, consequently, getting her flunked right along with her.

"Just imagine for a moment that this had been an exam on, say, defensive lightsaber techniques," Eeth said calmly. "Would you think then that anyone would give you a pass grade, attesting you superior saber skills, for running away from the attacks? Or would you expect your instructors to evaluate your actual skill with a saber?"

Raven bristled, ignoring his logic and latching onto indignation instead. "I did not 'run away' from the attacks. Running away is for cowards, and I'm no coward. I employed the best defence, which was not to be there. If Rool didn't like my strategy, he should have said so, not failed me when he knows damned well that I can pass!" Raven was getting angry. She was tired, frustrated and wanted nothing more than to hide in her bedroom and cry.

"Padawan, you are evading my question," Eeth replied matter-of-factly. "If you employed the same logic in a maths test, arguing that you only solved two out of eight problems because the best strategy is to avoid situations in which your life or the success of a mission depend on calculations, I do think you would legitimately expect to fail. So would you when lightsaber techniques were concerned. The exam you took today was not about strategy at all. You were merely meant to demonstrate mastery of the techniques you had learned in class. At least eight of them. You did not do that. Therefore, you failed. And whether Master Rool is incapable of free thought really has no bearing on this."

"Well, I don't care if he was legitimised or not. He knew I could pass and he failed me on semantics. Jerk!" Raven banged her fist on the table.

"If he was going to hand out pass grades based on his knowledge of you, this exam would have been pointless," Eeth said. "You know how these things work. If you fail to write down the answers in a maths test, you will not get credited with knowing them, no matter if your teacher thinks you do. The same thing applies here."

"In this case, the exam _WAS_ pointless for me. It was just a formality. I am good enough to practically help him teach it, and I did on several occasions," Raven butted in. She did understand his point, but she also had her own of which she was not willing to let go of just yet.

"I think you are seriously overestimating yourself," Eeth replied sternly. "If you were that good, maybe you should just have fought off your attackers, rather than sticking to what you read on the holonet last night. Now before we talk any further, lose the attitude. You are not doing yourself any favours."

"I COULD have fought them off!" Raven yelled.

Eeth rose, grabbed Raven by the ear, pulled her up and planted a solid swat onto the seat of her pants. "That was not what I meant when I told you to lose the attitude," he said sternly.

That was the second time Raven's ear had copped it that day. It was also the second time someone had swatted her. Ordinarily, it would be enough to get her attention and have her smarting for ten or so minutes, but nothing more. Today, the accumulation of such a spectacularly disastrous day was taking its toll. She swiped at her face, fighting the urge to sniffle. Crying over a single swat, however impressive Eeth made them, was just not happening. "I wanted…" She paused, not exactly keen on admitting to this but nor did Eeth look like he was going to give up any time soon. "I wanted to impress Rool. I busted my ass studying, and just because he wants to be a complete jerk about this, I have to wait another cycle before I'm cleared for missions. I'm going to be ninety at this rate!"

"If you want to impress your instructors, the next time try applying what they taught you," Eeth said drily, receiving a sheepish expression from Raven in response. "And, no, you will not have to wait for another cycle to gain mission clearance."

"I won't have to wait? But, how can I be given mission clearance without passing the class?" Raven started pacing before him. "I can't get the clearance without passing that stupid class AND I can't pass the stupid class if the jerk of a teacher won't let me pass the freakin' exam!" She elaborated. "What am I missing here?"

"What you are missing," Eeth said pointedly, "is some respect for your teacher. I will not continue this discussion until you are able to talk to me, and more importantly, Master Rool, reasonably and calmly. Are you?" He rested a hand on Raven's shoulder, meaning to send her a wave of calming energy through their bond. And he did; but as he did so, he could not help picking up on her fatigue. He would have to see to it that she went to bed early tonight. He supposed that lack of sleep would not help her lose her attitude although he failed to see what had caused her to lose sleep. Unless… Suspicion sparked up. He pushed it aside for the moment. They were talking about her exam right now and she was definitely not too tired to give a proper response to his question.

"I am reasonable and CALM!" Raven jumped on the spot, waving her arms around in frustration. She was totally calm and having Eeth tell her that she wasn't was turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"No, you are not," Eeth replied firmly. "Go and meditate for twenty minutes. We will continue our talk when you are done."

The tone of his voice said clearly that arguing was not an option here. At least not if Raven wanted to sit comfortably during lunch.

Raven gathered as much. Thus, she grunted out a displeased "Yes, master," but that was as far as she was willing to push it. Besides, her backside had only just stopped stinging from her last bout of temper.

Typically, if Eeth told her to meditate Raven went to her meditation mat by their windows. Today, though, she wanted to exile herself, and so she stalked off to her bedroom. It wasn't easy to calm her mind because she was actually frustrated, not to mention tired from having stayed up studying for that stupid exam until almost midnight last night. Pff, a fat lot of good that had done, the padawan silently grumped. Raven lay there pounding her pillow for a short while, and then her eyelids grew heavy. It was just so comfortable. Suffice it to say, after about ten minutes of trying Raven gave in to the temptation and dozed off. She was upside down on her bed, one leg up the bedhead and pillow clutched to her chest.

Eeth, of course, was having none of this. He marched into Raven's bedroom and shook her awake.

"Eeeeeewhat!" Raven squealed in surprise, as if she were being attacked by a boar wolf. Immediately alert and wide awake, she gave him her best put-out expression.

"Padawan, at what time, exactly, did you go to bed last night?" Eeth inquired.

"Nine," she lied into her pillow, yawning and trying to sound casual. She also lost the pissed-off expression because, given that she had fallen asleep when she was meant to be meditating, and that Eeth was now asking questions she didn't want to answer, it went without saying that pissing him off further was to be avoided.

"Try that again," Eeth said, stony-faced. Getting away with lying to him was unheard of, for anyone, least of all a person sharing a training bond with him.

Raven sat up, her hair sticking straight up on one side. She scrubbed at her eyes, using the fact that they were tired as an excuse not to look at him. That was not to say that Raven couldn't sense his displeasure. "I don't know, late. Not long before you got home. I wanted to be prepared."

"Which left you overtired," said Eeth, unamused. "And gave you the absurd idea that your instructor would expect you to demonstrate skills in the exam that he never taught you. You know your curfew is not negotiable, and exploiting my absence in order to stay up late is not something I am prepared to tolerate. Before we get to that, though, tell me if you are learning anything from this." Eeth really hoped that she did because he was not willing to let her gain mission clearance if she had still not understood that her superiors' judgment outranked hers.

Raven ignored his question for a moment, her eyes widening at his statement; if he nailed her with taking advantage of his absence it was probably going to end badly. "Wait. I wasn't taking advantage, I swear it. I just wanted to study for an exam. It was a bad idea, I get that now, but it wasn't like I stayed up for fun or anything." Force, if she was going to get caught out ignoring her curfew, it could at least be over something fun that she enjoyed!

"'Not negotiable' means 'not negotiable'," Eeth said. "And you still have not answered my question."

"Aw!" Raven scooted back up her bed until her back was against the headboard, and then she hugged her pillow to her chest. Having to eat humble pie over all of this was the last thing the padawan wanted to do! She wanted to try negotiating the non-negotiable. Her jaw squared and she gave him a look that Eeth would recognise as stubbornness. However, it took no more than a glare from Eeth to have her rethinking going down that path. Ug, it was like pulling teeth. "I guess I failed because I didn't do what Rool expected. Even if I am able to, I didn't demonstrate it so he flunked me." Raven still thought he was a jerk for doing that, but she was willing to concede that it had been her own actions that brought this about.

"Alright," Eeth said. "If you are willing to tell him that to his face, and add an apology for the disrespect you showed him when you left his classroom, he will let you take the exam again this weekend. Are you?"

Okay, so hearing that Rool was going to give her another chance was the very last thing Raven expected. Her eyes widened and she sat up on her knees. Still, there was a slight conflict to her expression; apologising to him didn't sit well with the padawan. She wasn't hung up on her pride like some of her peers, but she still felt that he might have just asked her to do the exam over rather than put her through this. Well, Raven was no stranger to eating humble pie, and Eeth was usually right about such things. So, she gripped her pillow tightly and told Eeth, "Yes, master."

"Good," said Eeth. "Then perform the meditation that I asked you for. Without falling asleep. When you are finished, come into the common room. We need to have a talk about your curfew."

Raven just looked at him. How the Force was she meant to meditate knowing that he was probably going to haul her across the coals afterwards? She let her expression do the talking, but Eeth ignored it. Very pointedly so. Huffing as her door slid shut, the padawan did what she should have done in the first place and knelt, her head resting into the wall. It helped limit distractions, and in this case, stopped her from falling asleep. When her alarm went off signaling that her time was finally up, Raven exited her bedroom. Well, sort of. She peered around the corner.

Eeth was in the kitchen but he sensed her emerge from her bedroom. He washed and dried his hands and came out into the dining area. "Come here, padawan," he said sternly, pulling out a chair from the table.

Just as Eeth rounded the corner, Raven ducked her head back around. Why? No idea! It was too late anyway, because if he hadn't seen her, he had apparently sensed her which was just as devastating to her cover. She poked her head around again as he pulled a chair from their dining room table, and wished she had not. The way in which Eeth sat did not look as if he wanted to talk. Well, maybe he did? He might just want her complete attention. It was not implausible. A small sense of hope that Eeth might just want to lecture sprang to life inside. Still, the padawan did not rush to stand before him; she dragged her feet the entire way. Raven took the initiative and started talking "I don't have any attitude, I swear it. I'll apologise to master Rool if you want and I'll retake the test and pass."

"Yes, I have no doubt about that," Eeth said grimly. "Before you do, though, I would like to make clear to you that it is utterly unacceptable to take advantage of my absence in order to ignore your curfew. Due to my Council duties, there will be many such absences. You might feel tempted to exploit that fact, and you might even get away with it occasionally. But rest assured that if I do take note of it, I will come down on you hard every single time. The rules are there for a reason, and I expect you to stick to them even when nobody is watching."

He pulled the small paddle from his belt and ordered, "Bare your bottom and get over my lap."

Raven's face fell, but despite obvious reluctance, her hands started with the buckle on her belt. She tossed it onto their table and pulled her trousers down, her expression piteous. "Wait, wait," Raven held up her hands as an idea came to her. "I'll go to bed early every night for the next week! That's fair." Actually, if you asked her — which nobody was likely to — it was more than fair! The thing was that Eeth had yet to allow her any say on how he punished her. She just hoped that this time, given that her proposal had been entirely reasonable, he might.

"I am not going to put the way I punish you to a vote," Eeth snapped. "If you are not in position in ten seconds, I will double the count."

"Awww!" Raven whined, bouncing around for emphasis. Unfortunately, all this achieved was to drop her trousers to her feet and garner a withering look from Eeth. Depending on the circumstances, ten seconds could either be an eternity or the blink of an eye; this was most definitely the latter, but she knew it would soon flip to the former. "Mastteerrrr, c'mon. You don't have to do it. I won't do it again. It was because of an exam, not for fun. Can't you take that into consideration. Pleeeeease," she rambled, while complying with his instructions. Raven didn't wait for an answer, though, just in case the ten seconds were over, and so she put herself over his knee. There was still hope!

Actually, as far as Eeth was concerned, there was no hope whatsoever. He lost no time in raising the paddle and bringing it down onto her bottom with considerable force. "I do not care why you disregarded your curfew," he snapped. "There was no reason for you to put in any amount of study for that exam." Another swat followed. "Even if there had been," he thought to clarify, "I would have expected you to go to bed on time because being tired for an exam is never helpful." A third swat, underlined that statement. "Most importantly, though," Eeth added, "you will not take advantage of my absence." With this, he delivered the hardest swat yet and then started the paddling in earnest. He rarely lectured while he spanked; but in this case, he had thought it important to leave no ambiguity with regard to the reasons for this punishment.

Raven was having a hard time listening since each time Eeth made a point, her ass was set on fire. By the time he landed the forth, Raven was expecting it. What she hadn't expected was that it would outperform the last three. "Yeoow!" That one had her kicking out reflexively and paved the way for how the rest of this was going to go down; namely, with a lot of kicking, writhing, wriggling, yelping and finally, begging and pleading. It hurt more than she had expected, but then again, it always did!

Eeth was thorough, not because this had been a particularly serious infraction, but because he always was. He thought that two dozen swats would bring his point across nicely. This might have the added benefit that it would be felt for a few more hours and might thus serve as a reminder to Raven to keep her tongue in check when she talked to Master Rool. Which he would expect her to do this afternoon.

At this point, the only thing Raven was thinking about was how much her ass hurt, and when it was going to stop hurting! The only reason she had managed to hold it together through that first dozen without completely losing her shit was because Eeth rarely gave her more than twelve with the paddle. Unsurprisingly, when he failed to stop and landed a thirteenth smack the tears started in earnest. What in the name of the living Force had she been thinking, trying to get away with disobeying her master? Obviously it was an impossibility to get away with anything, yet she had tried. Not only had Rool flunked her and her best friend, but now she was never going to sit down ever again!

Unperturbed by her wails, Eeth completed the second dozen. This paddle was quite small and relatively light, which meant that it was safe to use it for lengthy punishments if Eeth felt that those were in order; but it did impart an impressive sting, which was evident from Raven's reaction. And it was meant to. Frequent absences were a given, due to Eeth's Council duties, and he needed to rely on Raven to behave herself even when he was not around.

Finally, it was over. Eeth laid the paddle onto the table and waited for Raven to regain some composure, patting her back lightly while he did without really being aware of it.

Okay, so it was official; her ass was never going to be the same. She would never sit on it ever again! Of course, Raven thought that after every run-in of this sort with Eeth. Why this memory did not stick long enough to prevent her from landing herself in the same position again was completely beyond her. Apparently, her ass-to-brain connection was broken! However, she would argue vehemently to the contrary right now. Raven lay there for a while, not because she particularly enjoyed the position (dangling bare-assed over someone's lap was never dignified) but because she wanted to at least try facing Eeth with a modicum of dignity. Also, Raven wanted his comfort. She was over-tired and had just endured one of the crappiest days she'd had since becoming a padawan.

Eeth gathered as much. He assumed that Raven's fatigue would not help. He finally helped her up from his lap and, after a moment's hesitation, pulled her into a hug. "Padawan, I want you to take a nap until lunchtime," he said gently. "I will help you fall asleep." If she did, and managed to get the conversation with Master Rool over with politely and respectfully, he might just take her into the city later today to make her bad day a little better… or, at least, to give her an 'educational experience'!

The hug was appreciated, although it did produce fresh tears. Not because Raven was upset, but because she was overtired and her emotions were all over the place. Her first response was to argue that naps were for creche younglings; she wasn't a creche youngling! She was, however, tired, and trying to argue that fact with the man who shared a training bond with her would be impossible. Resigned, Raven pulled up her trousers, wincing as she did so, and nodded. She wasn't sniffling any longer, but nor was sleeping going to be comfortable and so the offer to help her sleep was accepted gratefully.

Eeth let Raven sleep for an hour and a half, by which time he had finished preparing lunch. He went to wake her, gently shaking her shoulder.

"Wake up, padawan," he said. "Lunch is on the table. If you sleep any longer, you will not be able to fall asleep tonight."

"Do-I-have-to?" Raven mumbled into her pillow, but rolled over to face him all the same. That had been the best sleep she had ever had!

"Yes, you have to," Eeth said firmly, yanking her blanket away. "I expect you in the common room in five minutes, at most."

"Grumpy."… But she got up and went to wash her face regardless. While she was in there, Raven took the opportunity to inspect her ass. It was no longer bright red, as it must have been earlier, but it was still pink and it still hurt. There was a moment's hesitation in which the padawan contemplated sticking her ass under the shower, but it really wasn't that dire; just annoying. When she emerged exactly five minutes later, it was to the smell of something good. "Can I eat on the couch?" she asked, not particularly keen on sitting at the table.

"Absolutely not," said Eeth. "Use a pillow if you must. But you will sit on a chair." After she had called Master Rool, he was going to perform some healing. But she did not need to know that.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him what the difference was, but she had learned to avoid such minor discrepancies as Eeth usually won them. Raven ate lunch seated on a pillow. In fact, it was kind of novel to sit up so high for a change. She stretched up as tall as she could, looking over at Eeth and copying his mannerisms; it was fun to be a member of the Jedi High Council. "Please pass the salt, padawan," she told him in her best Eeth impersonation.

Eeth frowned but did not really know how to respond to this. So he did not. He merely passed Raven the salt. "After lunch, you will call Master Rool," he informed her.

That was enough to have her slouching again. "Why so soon? Can't we do it tomorrow when he's had time to, you know … settle down?" Raven wanted to say 'get over the mess I made out of his class and maybe forget a little' but she kept that part to herself.

"No," said Eeth. "I want to know the date of your exam as soon as possible so I can plan accordingly. And it will not get any easier the longer you postpone it." Besides, he thought, the remaining sting of her punishment might prevent further sassy outbursts. Hopefully.

The rest of lunch was eaten in relative silence, Eeth having quashed any playfulness out of her with his proclamation that she was to call Rool. Raven took her time cleaning up after lunch, lagging well behind Eeth while drying the dishes he washed. They did own a steriliser, but there was not a lot to clean, much to Raven's disappointment. When she could stall no longer, Eeth pointed her to the comm unit with an unyielding look on his face. There was no point arguing, she could tell that from his tone and expression. Thus, the padawan very reluctantly input the code Eeth had given her and waited.

Rool took his time answering the call. Of course he could see the code and knew exactly what to expect. But he saw no reason to make it easy on Raven.

Raven was getting her hopes up that perhaps he wasn't home. Yeah, wishful thinking. "Yes?" Rool growled when he finally deigned to accept the call, pointing his glowing green eyes at Raven in an unrelenting glare.

She swallowed once, straightened, her chin came up and she met his green gaze. Or was it more of a glare? Yep, definitely a glare, there was no mistaking it. The padawan shifted her weight to the other foot. "Master Rool," she greeted him with a bow, the same as if she were greeting Eeth. When she got no more than a very slight nod in acknowledgement, she cleared her throat unnecessarily and pushed on. "I apologise for storming out of your class, and for saying that you lack skill." It was a rather perfunctory apology, but at least it had been honest.

"Apology accepted," Rool said curtly. "Lack of skill has nothing to do with why you failed the exam, neither on your part nor on mine. Do you understand why it happened?"

Raven looked down at her hands and wrung the hem on her tunic. The reason she had failed was understood, but she maintained her belief that Rool had overreacted by failing her; he could have just called them down! This internal war went on for a few seconds, but ultimately, she trusted Eeth; he wasn't usually wrong about this sort of thing. "Because I didn't demonstrate my ability to fend off more than two of the eight attacks required in the twenty-four minute period." As before, it was a very perfunctory answer, but again, it had been honest.

"Hmm," Rool grunted. "Two or three years from now, you will be allowed to attend combat simulation, survival and strategy classes. Save your creative thinking and your holonet research until then. Removing yourself from the fight will be an excellent solution in many situations, if it is a viable option. But if it is not, you will be forced to fight and my class is meant to teach you the skills you need in order to do so. Even when, for some reason, you are unable to use a saber."

The idea of a class that focussed specifically on strategy appealed, and that one existed at all was news to Raven. She kept any questions about that for later, though, and simply nodded. Her body shifted very slightly when she sensed that Eeth was seated behind her at their dining room table observing the conversation, and any thoughts of questioning Rool over why he had not simply told them they were doing it wrong were abandoned. "Master tells me that you're going to let me redo the exam." Raven met his green glare. "Thank you. My mission clearance is dependant on that." Raven didn't think he'd care, but she wanted to let him know that she appreciated the fact that he was allowing her a second chance to prove herself.

"Gym A33, tomorrow morning at nine," Rool said brusquely. "I will see you then. Be on time." He ended the call abruptly.

Raven stared at the screen for a moment, blinked at his rudeness, and then turned that expression on Eeth. "And you say I'm the one with the attitude."

"I have never said you are the only one," Eeth pointed out. "Besides, you were quite rude to him yourself when you left the gym."

It was on the tip of her tongue to argue that two wrongs do not make a right. Besides, Rool was meant to be the mature one here! Well, Raven huffed and folded her arms.

"Now," said Eeth, considering the matter closed. "Are you up to a trip into the city? I would like to show you the Cyznkala junkyards. It is a useful area to be acquainted with."

Her arms dropped to her sides and she met him with a disbelieving expression. "Really? I failed my class, lied to you about my curfew and …" Raven didn't want to keep on with that list as it could go nowhere good for her. "…you're going to take me into the city!?"

"This is not a reward," Eeth said severely, causing Raven to recoil in surprise. "It is an educational excursion. Besides, you have been duly punished for lying about your curfew. As for the exam, you failed, and for good reason. I do not see why this should lead me to deprive you of real-life experience. Do you need me to perform some healing on your bottom before we leave?"

Did she need healing? No, probably not. But did she want it? Hell, yes, she wanted it! "Please," Raven replied eagerly, practically falling over their arm chair to get to the couch. She didn't argue with him over his decision to take her into the city any further; he was taking her and that was all Raven could think about right now.

Eeth provided her with some pain relief – not enough to take away all the sting, but certainly enough to allow her to sit in a speeder for an hour or so, if not entirely comfortably.

When he was done, he stood and said, "Now fetch your cloak and pull your boots on, or I will assume you would rather put in another afternoon of laundry duty."

It crossed her mind to inform him that they had no laundry left to do, but reconsidered; being a smart ass right now was probably not in her best interest. So, she jumped up off the couch, yanked up her trousers and skidded across the floor on her socks, stopping by her boots. Her ass still hurt, but it was a minor inconvenience that was easily forgotten, given that they were about to go out. Raven loved to leave the Temple. There was simply nothing more thrilling for her at this point in her career.

Eeth knew it, and he also happened to think it was good for Raven to get to know the city and learn where to find information or whatever else she might need in the course of her career. Hence, the junkyards. It was actually a vast sector in the lower levels where junkyards were interspersed with markets, shops and even pod race tracks. It was an area in which shady people liked to hide and illegal goods could be obtained, but it was also frequented by ordinary citizens looking for bargains.

They spent most of the afternoon and some of the early evening looking in and around the junkyards. Eeth explained how he had obtained many contacts that turned out to be useful over the years from visiting these sorts of places. And sure enough, they stopped at several markets where Eeth introduced her to beings who he'd built up relationships with. Contacts where important in their line of work and could sometimes mean the difference between success and failure, he explained.

It was around seven in the evening when they returned from their outing. Raven was not tired, thanks to the nap she'd had earlier. In fact, it was quite the opposite; she was bouncing off the walls. The trip into the city had been just what she needed. She practically somersaulted from their speeder but refrained from any commando rolls, if only because getting grease all over her tunic from fooling around would probably result in her washing it herself. "Thanks for taking me. That was freakin' awesome!" she told Eeth when he rounded the speeder and they began walking (or in Raven's case, bouncing) towards the turbo lifts that would take them to their level.

"You are welcome," said Eeth. "Stop those antics and walk properly. If you need some more exercise, I will be happy to take you to the gym."

"Please," Raven replied, but stopped with the hopping around and walked. Right now, being chased all over the gym was just what she felt like doing.

Eeth was happy to oblige. They had already eaten at a Senchi food stall on the way home, so there was nothing on their schedule. Eeth found a free aerials gym and engaged Raven in a vigorous round of freestyle sparring. He did not go easy on her; Raven usually needed a challenge where physical activity was concerned, which matched Eeth's teaching style perfectly. After a good hour of Eeth chasing Raven through the gym, even he was slightly sweaty, which was saying something. They went home to take a shower and found the comm light blinking.

"It's from Bindi. Can I comm her back, please?" Raven, who had pounced on their comm unit the moment they had entered, asked.

"Take a shower first," said Eeth who knew how long these calls could take.

Raven sniffed herself. She did not smell, but nor was there any point in arguing with Eeth.

Fifteen minutes later, the padawan was at their comm unit, deep in discussion. As it turned out, Bindi, too, had been given another chance to pass the test tomorrow morning.

"Maybe he felt guilty for flunking us for the sake of it," reasoned Raven.

"Who cares. We get a do-over, which saves us another cycle. Not that I'd care. I like classes; they're fun."

Raven gave her friend a withering look that was a lot like Eeth's, but otherwise did not comment on the craziness of actually enjoying classes.

"Hey, do you want to meet tomorrow after the exam? It will give us an opportunity to gripe about Master Rool's class, and…" Bindi paused, not wanting to bring up her lightsaber when there was a possibility that both their masters could overhear it.

Raven picked up on what was left unspoken immediately. "Great idea, I'll ask." She turned from where she was facing Bindi to find Eeth emerging from his room. "Can I meet up with Bindi tomorrow after Master Rool's class?" she asked.

"Yes, you may," said Eeth. "Until lunchtime." He wanted to reserve the afternoon for chores, class preparation and a long workout. However, his plans changed significantly later that night when he browsed through the summary of his Council notifications. One message in particular attracted his attention. He studied it for a few minutes and then made a decision. By the time Raven got up on Saturday morning, he had already made arrangements.

"I am sorry, padawan, but you will have to postpone your meeting with Bindi," he informed her during breakfast. "You may meet her for lunch. After your exam, we have an important errand to run that I did not know of last night."

"What important errand?" Raven met him with a curious expression.

"I will tell you after your exam," said Eeth. He did not want her to be distracted or outright bouncing off the walls, which would be likely to happen if he told her now.

Raven put down her toast and just looked at him. "You'll tell me after my exam? Why? What's that supposed to mean?" Now she was really curious!

"It is supposed to mean that I will tell you after the exam," Eeth said serenely. "Try to exercise some patience, padawan. It is a Jedi virtue. Now stop asking questions and get ready to leave. You do not want to arrive late."

No, she did not, but nor had Eeth's answer been at all satisfactory in her opinion. Frowning, she squared her jaw and crossed her arms. However, when Eeth made like he was going to stand, the padawan was quick to drop the defiance. "Yes, master," she rushed to get out. Raven wasn't happy about it, yet Eeth gave her no options here. Well, no options that she would enjoy, that is. The remainder of breakfast was eaten in silence. Raven wasn't sulking, not entirely.

* * *

"Hey, Raven, you ready to kick some Jedi knight butts?" Bindi said in way of greeting when Raven approached the benches lining the outer wall of their gym.

"Sure am." Raven sat down on the bench beside Bindi. "That is, of course, assuming that Rool gives us the same exam as he did the others."

"Who knows with this guy," replied Bindi.

"Oh, we'll have to catch up for lunch instead of directly after our exam. We're going on an errand," said Raven.

"Where you going? And to do what?" Bindi wanted to know.

"If only I knew. Apparently, my master enjoys tormenting me." Raven frowned. "He wouldn't tell me where we were going, and when I pushed he got all prickly."

Bindi was about to reply to that when the doors to their gym flew open and Raven jumped to her feet. She was a flighty personality, highly strung and easily startled. Bindi, however, rose with her usual casual ease and smiled at the Arconaian master.

"Warm up," Rool ordered in way of a greeting, beckoning them inside. "Get to it. You have ten minutes."

"Get to it," Raven mimicked him under her breath to Bindi when he had turned his back and they were following him in.

Bindi was about to chuckle when Rool swung around lightening-fast and stopped any such reactions in their tracks. Before Raven had a chance to know what happened, he had snapped his cane across her bottom.

"I will have no more disrespect from you, Padawan Raven," he barked. "You do not want me to revisit your disgraceful behaviour when you last left my gym." He pointed her to the center of the gym, the look on his face daring her to say another word.

"Ow!" Raven hissed through gritted teeth; he was just too damned fast with that thing. Her back arched and she rubbed vigorously at the searing line of fire that lit up across her backside. It wasn't as bad as Eeth's cane, but still, it felt like she had been welted with a burning cord. Raven was many things, but she wasn't suicidal. Thus, she moved to the center of the gym and started to warm up without backtalk.

Bindi risked a sympathetic look, but she too got to work. The Twi'lek was the only one in Rool's class to have made it through the entire course without feeling his cane, and she wanted to keep it that way.

This time, Rool had only recruited one assistant, an experienced, broad-backed human Jedi master. It was between him and Rool to attack the two padawans, which turned this exam into quite a challenge. Even if any of the padawans had wanted to make smart remarks, they lacked the breath to utter them, which was entirely intended.

Alright! This was more than Raven could have ever hoped for. One on one with Rool was, of course, going to end up with her exhausted, sore and sporting several bruises, but it was going to be the showdown to end all showdowns. And it was. Raven held nothing back – she didn't need to against a Jedi master – and fought like her life truly depended on each and every move she made.

Bindi, although far less enthusiastic than her peer, fought with determination. She wasn't as fast as Raven, but she was more calculated. Where Raven could fall back on innate skill, Bindi used every ounce of knowledge she had gleaned over the past two weeks to win her battles.

Finally, the Jedi master called the exam to a stop. He nodded to his assistant, who gave him a cheerful nod in return and left. Then he turned to the two padawans.

"Both of you passed," he said brusquely. "Padawan Raven, you are fast and determined and you have mastered the moves I taught you. On some occasions, a tad more precision would have helped you to get rid of your opponent faster." He explained what he meant, referring to two of the attack sequences Raven had defended herself against and showing her how a more precise aim would have helped.

"Nevertheless, your performance was adequate," he concluded. "You will receive a straight A."

Then he turned to Bindi. "You, on the other hand, performed the moves I taught you with adequate precision," he said, "but you lack speed. If your opponent has even a split-second's time to prepare for what you are about to do, you will lose the element of surprise. You need to fully commit yourself to your attacks and master the moves to a degree where you will not need to think about them. All things considered, and given that this was a first-level class and that you managed to successfully fend off all attacks directed at you, you will receive an A-. Dismissed."

Both padawans bowed, turned and left the gym without further comment. Raven was on a high, despite the fact that she could still feel that cane welt, while Bindi was smiling, looking rather pleased with herself. "See you around lunchtime to gripe about that exam? I'll comm you if that doesn't work out," said Bindi.

"Lunchtime," Raven replied as the two parted ways where the corridor split.

* * *

Raven entered their quarters with a huge smile on her face. She sat on the floor, ignoring the very slight sting that lingered, not to mention the soreness in her muscles, and pulled off her boots. "I got a straight A. Told you I would own that class if given a fair chance," Raven shouted, having sensed Eeth in their kitchen. If her head got any bigger, she might not fit through her bedroom door.

"Well done, padawan," Eeth said calmly, emerging from the kitchen. "There was no need to pull off your boots. We will go straight to the commissary."

"Oh?" Raven paused, and started pulling them back on. "So are you finally going to tell me why all the secrecy?"

"You are going to find out soon enough," said Eeth, bending down to pick up his own boots. It would not hurt Raven to wait for five more minutes.

No, it would not physically hurt Raven to wait five more minutes, but she might just perish from the sheer frustration of it all! Maybe he was still punishing her? No, that just wasn't Eeth's style any more than she believed he was out to truly torment her. "Patience is a Jedi virtue my ass…" Raven coughed, not finishing that mumble as Eeth turned to face her. She said no more.

Eeth did not rise to that. He merely led the way to the commissary where a droid was expecting them and took them to a small side room.

"We need to have measurements taken for Fenestrian ceremonial robes," Eeth told the droid. "We need them by tonight."

The droid chirped and started to run laser beams across Raven's body.

Raven just looked at Eeth, her expression wide-eyed and expectant. She totally ignored the tiny tailoring droid that was buzzing around her taking measurements. Eventually the silence got the better of her. "Will I be the first padawan fitted for Fenestrian ceremonial robes to have absolutely no idea why, or what for?" She left off any smart-ass comments on the possibility that he was out to torture her just to be on the safe side.

"No," said Eeth, the edges of his mouth quirking upwards very slightly. Then he decided to take pity on her. "We are leaving on a mission to Fenesteer tomorrow morning," he said, "where we are going to attend the crowning ceremony of the new king as representatives of the Jedi Order. Does that answer the question that you did not actually ask?"

"Yes, it does. I didn't ask because each time I TRIED you told me to be patient! Why the Force couldn't you have just told me that this morning? A real mission! My first MISSION! And you didn't tell me!" She shot him an accusatory look. If Raven thought for a second she could get away with socking him one, she would at this point.

"I wanted you to focus on your exam, as opposed to your very first mission," Eeth replied, a hint of a warning in his voice. "Which you did. Very successfully so. After which I lost no time in taking you here. So please stop complaining."

There was a lot, LOT, that Raven could say to that, but she considered his tone and thought better of it.

"Arms up! Be still. Please!" scolded the droid as it buzzed around her top half.

Raven flicked it with her finger, sending it whirling towards Eeth and causing a trill of indignant beeping and chittering. "Bossy much!" Raven replied, but complied all the same. She was too consumed by thoughts of what this mission might entail to care about being monstered by a tailoring droid with a 'tude. "Do we get to take our own ship?" It was just one of the fifteen million questions Raven had.

"We do," Eeth said mildly. "Why don't you keep still while the droid takes your measurements and I will give you all the mission details later? For now, we need to focus on assembling our mission gear." Which was what they did. After the droid had finished, they picked up a number of other items for Raven in the commissary and left for their quarters with a cartload of mission gear – for Raven's very first mission…


End file.
